Team Response to Teaching Assistant Feedback on a Model-Eliciting Activity

Presented by Oguz Hanoglu

This Study analyzes first year engineering students’ team response qualitatively based on team work videos, interviews (audio) and submitted team reports.

Phenomenography and Engineering Education

Presented by Noah Salzman

Phenomenography is the study of the limited number of qualitatively different ways that individuals experience a phenomenon. In this presentation, I will provide a brief history of phenomenographic research, describe key aspects of a phenomenographic study, and summarize studies utilizing phenomenography in engineering education.

Schmooze or Lose: Soft Skills Among Engineering Alumni

Presented by Dana Denick

Using data collected through the Pathways of Engineering Alumni Research Survey (PEARS), this presentation describes a study exploring self-efficacy among recent engineering alumni. Of particular interest to this study were relationships among confidence in professional and interpersonal skills, confidence in technical skills, and nature of employment.

Factors That Help and Hinder Teaching Assistants’ Ability to Execute Their Responsibilities

Presented by Kelsey Rodgers and Farshid Marbouti

Graduate and undergraduate teaching assistants (TAs) are key players in large universities’ efforts to incorporate student-centered learning into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses. This paper investigates, through interviews, the perspectives of eight TAs employed within a First-Year Engineering course with a significant focus on open-ended problem solving. The purpose of this study was to identify factors that helped and hindered teaching assistants’ execution of their responsibilities. Based on the interview results, a survey was created to further assess the First-Year Engineering program’s teaching assistants experience.