ENE Projects/Grants
Collaborative Research: Interactive Visualization and Simulations for Facilitating Conceptual Change in Semiconductor Physics
Principal Investigators: Melissa Dyehouse, Kerrie Douglas, Azad Naeemi, Nassim Jafarinaimi, Otsebele Nare, Dragica Vasileska, Sandip Das, Beibei Jiang, Sheila Hill
Start Date: August 15, 2024
End Date: July 31, 2028
This NSF-funded IUSE project aims to serve the national interest by enhancing conceptual learning in quantum and semiconductor physics using interactive visualizations and simulations. While interactive visualization and simulation tools have made progress in mitigating certain student misconceptions, there is a lack of comprehensive studies examining the design efficacy of these tools. Existing research in this area is constrained by both limited size and scope. Led by researchers at Georgia Tech, a consortium of researchers spanning five diverse universities and colleges will conduct a large-scale investigation into the design of educational tools and design features that can significantly improve conceptual understanding in quantum and semiconductor physics in particular, and STEM in general. The project will develop more inclusive tools for a diversity of use cases and assess their utility and effectiveness across different educational environments. Abstract
Collaborative Research: e4usa+FIRST: Scaling Collective Impact through Pre-College Robotics Curricula
Principal Investigators: Adam Carberry, Assad Iqbal
Start Date: September 1, 2024
End Date: August 31, 2027
This collaborative project aims to bridge the gap in pre-college engineering education by developing robust, universally accessible robotics lessons capable of being used as either a stand-alone resource or a complementary resource for existing pre-college engineering programs. The project will iteratively develop robotics lessons, teacher guides, and artificial intelligence-driven teacher support to achieve nationwide implementation and serve the national interest. The project scaffolds engagement with teachers across the nation, building on an initial cohort of 12 high schools. Participating teachers will serve as co-creators and collaborators, with continuous feedback mechanisms to evaluate the implementation of lessons, impact on student engagement, and scalability of resources. A key strategy is building and securing alliances with academic, non-profit, and industry leaders to foster broad participation. Project activities feature a kick-off workshop, multiple development sprints, summer professional development, an academic year community of practice, mentorship, university and industry partnerships, and scalability and sustainability initiatives. Partnerships among academic institutions, non-profit organizations, industry leaders, and state organizations will allow the project to establish a robust model for integrating robotics into pre-college engineering education, leverage collective resources, and catalyze actions to broaden participation in STEM fields nationwide. Abstract
Collaborative Research: Understanding Cueing Gestures within Video Learning Environments for Statistics Education
Principal Investigators: Jason Morphew, Robb Lindgren, Michelle Perry, Shereen Beilstein
Start Date: September 1, 2024
End Date: August 31, 2027
Gesture is used to convey meaning about abstract ideas in human communication, particularly in educational settings. However, little is know how to use gesturing in online and asynchronous educational settings. This project aims to conduct a large-scale study of high school and undergraduate students to examine how prompting learners to gesture when learning statistics content in video-based learning environments might improve their understanding of statistical concepts and procedural knowledge. Using a mixed methods approach, researchers will employ design-based methods to create video learning environments that incorporate instructional gestures, cue students to perform these gestures, and monitor and provide feedback about student gestures during statistics instruction using webcams that are standard on most computers. Abstract
Research: Prompting Socially Engaged Divergent Thinking in Engineering Design by Leveraging Generative AI
Principal Investigators: Justin Hess, Robert Loweth
Start Date: September 15, 2024
End Date: August 31, 2027
This project will investigate three research questions related to the potential of Generative AI to support socially engaged divergent thinking in design projects, or the ability to identify and integrate diverse members of society and wide-ranging societal factors into one's engineering thinking. This project will contribute to national calls for resources to ensure students can use emergent technologies such as Generative AI in ethical and effective ways. In particular, the research team aims to develop a toolkit that is accessible, appropriate, and robust for use in diverse engineering curricular design contexts across the US. This toolkit will be publicly available to augment existing engineering design pedagogy and to support engineering students in integrating diverse stakeholders and societal considerations into their design work. Abstract
Exploring the Impact of Global Undergraduate Experiences on Engineers’ Career Pathways and Approaches to Engineering Work
Principal Investigators: Kirsten Davis, Joe Tort
Start Date: August 1, 2023
End Date: July 31, 2026
Our study will compare the career trajectories and global work experiences of engineers who participated in global undergraduate experiences with those who did not. Our project will contribute new insights about the nature of global engineering work and workforce development approaches that can impact engineers’ success in this environment, both during the undergraduate years and after they enter the workforce. Abstract
Collaborative Research: Intersections between Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and Ethics in Engineering
Principal Investigators: Justin Hess, Brent Jesiek, Andrew Katz
Start Date: March 1, 2021
End Date: February 28, 2026
This study aims to understand how engineering educators and engineering practitioners understand ethics and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to relate in their teaching and practice. Through this study, we hope to bolster efforts towards the advancement of ethics and DEI both in engineering curriculums and organizational change initiatives. Abstract
Collaborative Research: Assessing Empathic Formation in Engineering Design
Principal Investigators: Justin Hess, Allison Godwin, Nick Fila, Corey Schimpf
Start Date: February 1, 2022
End Date: January 31, 2026
Empathy is essential for identifying, designing for, and meeting user needs and can motivate engineers to meaningfully engage with and respond to diverse viewpoints and values. Yet, measuring empathy is challenging because it manifests uniquely in different contexts. In this study, our primary objective develop a measure of empathic formation in undergraduate engineering design. By providing the community with this measure, we can facilitate the integration of empathy and assessment of empathy in engineering classroom contexts, which can positively impact the experience and retention of pro-socially motivated students in engineering programs. Abstract
Individualizing Instruction and Improving Research using Adaptive Testing (i3RAT)
Principal Investigators: Jason Morphew, Ben Van Dusen, Jayson Nissen
Start Date: October 1, 2022
End Date: September 30, 2025
This project aims to serve the national interest by developing diagnostic tools that will help instructors help students succeed in high-enrollment introductory physics courses. The introductory college physics course often poses a major hurdle for students working toward a degree in a STEM discipline. This project will develop a free online cognitive diagnostic computerized adaptive assessment platform that provides physics instructors with measures of individual student-level and course-level learning. These tools should allow physics instructors to provide individualized instruction by providing student-specific, actionable feedback throughout the course. The investigators intend to address the following education research questions: (1) What skills do instructors and researchers prioritize in introductory mechanics courses? (2) To what extent do existing assessment instruments measure these skills? (3) To what extent do existing instruments provide unbiased measures across demographic groups? (4) How, if at all, is the development of these skills interrelated (e.g., does developing some skills depend on having mastered other skills)? (5) What information, if any, about equity in their course do instructors report as helping to inform their teaching practices? Abstract
Project RADICAL: Fostering STEM identify development through localized engineering for LGBTQ+ youth displaced by housing insecurity
Principal Investigators: Jennifer DeBoer, Dhinesh Radhakrishnan
Start Date: July 15, 2022
End Date: September 30, 2025
The project will develop and research a model for engaging LGBTQ+ youth experiencing housing insecurity in an engineering education program. This research program explicitly broadens engineering and STEM participation through a three-year Design-Based Research study. The team will collaboratively tailor their existing "Localized Engineering in Displacement (LED)" curriculum to and with LGBTQ+ runaway/homeless youth at a residential center in Indianapolis. The LED curriculum uses Active, Blended, Collaborative, and Democratic pedagogy to support learners in identifying a technical problem they see around them, studying relevant STEM principles, and coming up with a solution they can use. The educational technology kit (EngStarter) provides adaptable tools for learners to use. The team will integrate practice and research and study the development of youth identities, learning experiences, and technology engagement. Abstract
Promoting Equity and Research Using Adaptive Testing to Support Individualized Instruction at Scale: An Incubator Project
Principal Investigators: Jason Morphew, Ben Van Dusen, Jayson Nissen, Paulette Vincent-Ruz, Darnell Leatherwood, Odis Johnson
Start Date: October 1, 2023
End Date: September 30, 2025
This Incubator project will support the creation of more sophisticated formative assessments in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math using Cognitive Diagnostic-based Computerized Adaptive Testing. This system offers advantages to both STEM instructors and education researchers. By creating and hosting assessments across STEM disciplines and K-16 grade bands, this Incubator project will support STEM instruction and create a large-scale database that can power novel STEM education research. This project created working groups made of up K-12 teachers and administrators, two-year and four-years colleges which included rural and minority-serving institutions. The outcome of this project includes a set of recommendations for developing a large assessment platform and the submission of a mid-scale research infrastructure grant aimed at expanding the Learning About STEM Student Outcomes (LASSO) platform and its network of users to build a formative assessment platform available for free to schools and instructors from which researchers can use anonymized data to conduct longitudinal research. Abstract
Collaborative Research: IRES Track I: US-Kenya Collaboration to Foster Underrepresented Students' Capacity in Community-Based Engineering Education Research
Principal Investigators: Jennifer DeBoer, Kirsten Davis
Start Date: September 1, 2022
End Date: August 31, 2025
Despite increased attention to and support for international opportunities for students, there are clear gaps in terms of who participates in such experiences and where they travel. Engineering students participate at lower rates, and racially and economically minoritized college/university students are the least likely to have the opportunity to participate. In addition, such international trips rarely take place in sub-Saharan Africa. To address this need, this IRES Track 1 project supports U.S. underrepresented students in conducting research in community-engaged engineering and the design of localized engineering education in Eldoret, Kenya. Students will work with research mentors in social work, engineering, and from the community itself, which will support their critical understanding of collaboration in international development and engineering problem-solving. We work across two collaborating institutions, Purdue University (PU) and San Francisco State University (SFSU), and we engage two departments at Moi University in Kenya, Education/Social Work and Engineering, and a community partner organization, Tumaini Innovation Center. Abstract
Collaborative Research: Exploring the Variation in Understanding and Experiences with Ethical Engineering Research among Faculty in Biomedical Engineering
Principal Investigators: Justin Hess, Andrew Brightman, Ali Kerr, Nick Fila.
Start Date: September 1, 2021
End Date: August 31, 2025
Engineering faculty prepare engineering students for ethical research conduct and practice so we need to understand how faculty understand and experience ethical engineering research. In this study, we will seek to identify the ways that biomedical engineering faculty members experience ethics in their research, the experiences that inform this understanding, and how to train engineering students in light of these findings. Abstract
Integrating the Humanities and Global Engineering
Principal Investigators: Lori Czerwionka, Kirsten Davis
Start Date: August 1, 2023
End Date: July 31, 2025
Our curricular project at Purdue University transforms existing curricular pathways in engineering and the liberal arts by integrating the humanities and engineering in coursework that offers experiential learning opportunities and also in an invited speaker series. Abstract
Collaborative Research: Early Career Engineers' Views of Ethics and Social Responsibility: Trends, Influences, and Contexts
Principal Investigators: Brent Jesiek, Carla Zoltowski, Stephanie Claussen
Start Date: August 15, 2020
End Date: July 31, 2025
Supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), this research project explores how early career engineers' perceptions of ethics and social responsibility change in the transition from undergraduate engineering degree programs to the workplace (or graduate studies) and how those perceptions are shaped or influenced. The study uses both survey (quantitative) and interview (qualitative) research methods, and aims to shed light on how early career engineers' perceptions of social and ethical responsibility are shaped by their previous undergraduate experiences, as well as their engineering discipline, current professional or organizational setting, and other factors. Abstract
Identifying Marginalization and Allying Tendencies to Transform Engineering Relationships
Principal Investigators: Stephanie Masta, Matthew Ohland, Darryl Dickerson, and Alice Pawley
Start Date: October 1, 2019
End Date: June 30, 2025
This project focuses on how to help instructors of large undergraduate engineering courses taught in teams how to identify when minoritized teammates are being harassed, and then what to do. The project uses individual and group interviews, observation, and diary entries from undergraduates analyzed through various qualitative analytical methods. Abstract
EAGER International Type II: Collaborative Research: Reimagining International Research for Students in a Virtual World
Principal Investigators: Kirsten Davis, David Knight, Nicole Sanderlin
Start Date: May 1, 2011
End Date: April 30, 2025
This NSF-funded project explores the design of international research experiences for students in virtual environments. Research questions: 1) How could each element of an international research experience for students be translated into a virtual environment? 2) What program structures allow for these virtual experiences? 3) What support do program leaders need to implement such programs? Abstract
Development, Deployment, and Evaluation of Instructional Modules for Current and Future Practitioners of Model-based Systems Engineering
Principal Investigators: Audeen Fentiman, John Sutherland, Kerrie Douglas, Daniel DeLaurentis, Jorge Dorribo Camba
Start Date: January 1, 2020
End Date: December 31, 2024
The overall goal of this project is to develop a set of effective, scalable online instructional materials in model-based systems engineering. The materials will be based on current research on student-centered education in authentic settings. There are three specific aims. The first is to identify the key concepts students must master in model-based systems engineering. The second is to develop pedagogies for teaching the concepts effectively to students at two-year, four-year, and professional levels. The third is to develop a process for assessing the effectiveness of online technical instruction for students with different experiential and demographic backgrounds. This project is funded by the National Science Foundation. Abstract