^{Photo: Amy Kramer and Cassie Wallwey, The Ohio State University}

Extant research has demonstrated that conceptions of smartness and ability impact students as they navigate engineering at the collegiate level. In this presentation, we will present two projects related to undergraduate engineering students’ beliefs about smartness, engineering, and their identity. This work aligns with out overarching research goal to better understand the nuanced interaction between these constructs to better supports students through their undergraduate experience. We first present a pilot study that utilized narrative-style interviews to collect students’ stories about first-year engineering students’ experiences and struggles in school. Interviews were conducted with seven participants, all of whom indicated on a recruitment survey that they had experience academic struggle in their first year of an undergraduate engineering program. We analyzed the interviews using three-part analytical memos and thematic analysis to identify three emergent themes. We will then present on how this pilot study informed our current NSF funded project on understanding the beliefs and identities with respect to smartness and engineering of undergraduate engineering students from different institutionalized pathways into engineering. 

Speaker Bios

Amy Kramer is a graduate student and research associate at The Ohio State University in the Department of Engineering Education. She earned a B.S. and M.S. in Civil Engineering from The Ohio State University. Most recently she worked as a structural engineering consultant in Columbus, OH where she specialized in the design of reinforced concrete and steel structures. Her current research interests include engineering epistemology, broadening participation in engineering, and engineering culture.

Cassie Wallwey is a PhD candidate at Ohio State University in the Department of Engineering Education. Cassie earned her B.S. and M.S. in Biomedical engineering from Wright State University in Dayton OH right before enrolling in the Engineering Education PhD program. She has served in both graduate research assistant and graduate teaching positions throughout grad school. Her current dissertation research focuses on feedback given to students in engineering courses, and how that feedback influences engineering students’ motivation.