Recent Faculty Research Publications 

A Size and Scale Framework for Guiding Curriculum Design and Assessment

Yi Kong, Kerrie A. Douglas, Kelsey J. Rodgers (ENE PhD '16), Heidi Diefes-Dux, Krishna Madhavan

Morgan Hynes, Wendy Hynes

The Maker Movement inspires people to express their creativity by making things in a self-directed and, often, collaborative learning endeavor. The excitement of the movement has spurred the development of various types of Makerspaces across the United States and the World to further enable people to make and innovate. The education community has recognized the potential for Makerspaces as learning environments that can foster interdisciplinary collaboration and self-directed learning. As such, there is much excitement to create Makerspaces within K-12 schools, libraries, colleges and universities. However, contrary to the formal design process used to build many school facilities, successful grass-roots makerspaces are most often created when those with like-minded interests come together and adapt the building around them to fit their needs. The research in this paper focuses on the design of such spaces by applying the environmental preferences predictors psychology construct. The study surveyed 276 students from art and design, engineering, and liberal arts majors to better understand their preferences as related to images of eight different Makerspaces. The results are broken down by the four predictors of preference, major, and gender. The results highlight differences among the images along with design considerations for creating spaces that welcome a broader audience.

The Expansive (Dis)Integration of Electrical Engineering Education

Brent Jesiek, Leah Jamieson 

Identifying the characteristics of engineering innovativeness

Dan Ferguson, Matt Ohland, Şenay Purzer, K. Jablokow

Predictive Data Analytic Approaches for Characterizing Behaviors in a Design-Build-Fly Aerospace and Aeronautical Capstone Design Course

Krishna Madhavan, M. Richey and B. McPherson

Predictive data models and interactive visualizations can be highly effective in understanding workload and skills assignment issues within design-build-fly teams in the aerospace industry. Capturing data that is needed to build predictive models in usable forms and then subsequently applying appropriate data mining techniques to derive insights from such data is a significant challenge. The ultimate goal of our work is to understand design behaviors among engineers that can lead to cost reductions and expediting product development in extremely complex engineering environments. The present study, pioneered by a large US aerospace company working with educators at 5 major engineering schools in the US, engineering education researchers, and practicing engineers, is a first step towards achieving this overall vision. In this paper, we characterize how engineering students enrolled in a senior capstone course interact and perform on complex engineering tasks commonly seen in the aerospace industry. We describe our instrumentation methodology and the data architecture for an associated analytics platform. We use course clickstreams, social networking and collaborations as the basis for our observations. 

^{Madhavan, K., Richey, M., & McPherson, B. “Predictive Data Analytic Approaches for Characterizing Behaviors in a Design-Build-Fly Aerospace and Aeronautical Capstone Design Course.” Computers in Education, 8(1), pp. 37 – 50. (2017).}

Learners in Advanced Nanotechnology MOOCs: Understanding their Intention and Motivation

Kerrie Douglas, Nathan Hicks, Heidi Diefes-Dux, Krishna Madhavan, B.P. Mihalec-Adkins and P. Bermel

Very little is known about the specific types of learners and their various needs and intentions with regards to STEM-related MOOCs. As MOOCs become increasingly popular and completion rates stay in the single digits, it is important to understand who is enrolling in MOOCs, what is motivating them to do so, and what they want from the courses. Results from a survey of 1,624 learners enrolled in three highly-technical STEM MOOCs revealed that while learners are coming from a variety of backgrounds, 64% of respondents indicated engineering or architecture as their primary field of study. In addition, 47% indicated desire to apply information obtained to an engineering project, and 29% desired to obtain a deep level of knowledge. These findings suggest that MOOCs can be marketed as professional development of working engineers and dissemination of highly technical information. 

^{Douglas, K.A.*, Mihalec-Adkins, B.P.*, Hicks, N.M.*, Diefes-Dux, H.A., Bermel, P., & Madhavan, K.  “Learners in Advanced Nanotechnology MOOCs: Understanding their Intention and Motivation.” Computers in Education, 8(1), pp. 94 – 105. (2017).}

Pushing and pulling Sara: A case study of the contrasting influences of high school and university experiences on engineering agency, identity, and participation

Allison Godwin and G. Potvin

This manuscript reports a longitudinal case study of how one woman, Sara, who had previously considered dropping out of high school, authored strong mathematics and science identities and purposefully exhibited agency through her experiences in high school science. These experiences empowered her to choose an engineering major in college; however, her introductory university engineering experiences ultimately pushed her out of engineering. Drawing on critical agency theory, we argue that by paying careful attention to how and why women author their identities and build agency through their experiences in high school, we may gain insight into why women may choose an engineering path in college. Additionally, we examine how Sara's perceptions of engineering structures and practices chipped away at the critical engineering agency she developed and caused her to leave engineering after her first year in college.

^{Journal of Research in Science Teaching. 54 (4), p. 439-462}

Estimating a missing examination score (PDF) 

Michael Loui and Athena Lin

From interest to decision: A comparative exploration of student attitudes and pathways to co-op programs in the United States and the United Kingdom

Nichole Ramirez, Beata Strubel, Matt Ohland, and Joyce Main

Big Data Characterization of Learner Behaviour in a Highly Technical MOOC Engineering Course

Kerrie Douglas, Peter Bermel, Md Monzurul Alam and Krishna Madhavan

MOOCs attract a large number of users with unknown diversity in terms of motivation, ability, and goals. To understand more about learners in a MOOC, the authors explored clusters of user clickstream patterns in a highly technical MOOC, Nanophotonic Modelling through the algorithm k-means++.  Five clusters of user behaviour emerged: Fully Engaged, Consistent Viewers, One-Week Engaged, Two-Week Engaged, and Sporadic users. Assessment behaviours and scores are then examined within each cluster, and found different between clusters. Nonparametric statistical test, Kruskal-Wallis yielded a significant difference between user behaviour in each cluster. To make accurate inferences about what occurs in a MOOC, a first step is to understand the patterns of user behaviour. The latent characteristics that contribute to user behaviour must be explored in future research. 

^{Journal of Learning Analytics, Vol 3, No 3 (2016)}

keywords: MOOCs; learning analytics; assessment

Disciplinary Differences in Out-of-School High School Science Experiences and Influence on Students’ Engineering Choices

Allison Godwin, Gerhard Sonnert, and Phillip M. Sadler

Participation from a variety of students is important to the long-term growth of the engineering field. Much of the research on engineering recruitment or career choice has focused on engineering as a whole, even though engineering disciplines are varied in student participation and focus. This work examines how students’ out-of-school interests and experiences in high school predict the likelihood of choosing a career in a particular engineering discipline. Out-of-school experiences offer more unstructured ways for students to meaningfully engage with science and engineering outside of the confines of the classroom. These experiences offer opportunities to spark particular science interests not included in traditional high school science curriculum. Additionally, participation in engineering for women has been historically low. For this reason, we also examined reported differences in out-of-school experiences by gender. Our findings indicate that reported out-of-school experiences increased the odds of students choosing particular engineering disciplines. Experiences traditionally stereotyped as masculine and more often reported by men, such as tinkering, increased the odds of choosing engineering disciplines with higher representation of men. However, some experiences equally reported by men and women, such as mixing chemicals or engaging with chemistry in the kitchen or talking with friends or family about science, predicted higher odds of choosing engineering disciplines with higher representation of women (chemical, biomedical, environmental). These quantitative results are a first step in understanding how out-of-school experiences are connected to the nuanced decisions of disciplinary engineering career decisions and have implications for the way engineering faculty draw on prior experience in the classrooms and for researchers on how out-of-school activities may predict students’ long-term career decisions.

^{Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER), Vol 6, Iss 2, No 2}

Faculty Perspectives and Institutional Climate for Teaching Quality in Engineering

Jacqueline C. McNeil (ENE PhD '14), Matthew W. Ohland and Catherine E. Brawner

Sustainability Goals of Students Underrepresented in Engineering: An Intersectional Study

Allison Godwin, Leidy Klotz, Zahra Harari and Geoff Potvin

The use of engineering design scenarios to assess students know ledge of global, societal, economic and environmental contexts

Ann McKenna, Morgan Hynes, Amy Johnson and Adam Carberry  

Product archaeology as an educational approach asks engineering students to consider and explore the broader societal and global impacts of a product's manufacturing, distribution, use, and disposal on people, economics, and the environment. This study examined the impact of product archaeology in a project-based engineering design course on student attitudes and perceptions about engineering and abilities to extend and refine knowledge about broader contexts. Two design scenarios were created: one related to dental hygiene and one related to vaccination delivery. Design scenarios were used to (1) assess knowledge of broader contexts, and (2) test variability of student responses across different contextual situations. Results from pre- to post-surveying revealed improved student perceptions of knowledge of broader contexts. Significant differences were observed between the two design scenarios. The findings support the assumption that different design scenarios elicit consideration of different contexts and design scenarios can be constructed to target specific contextual considerations.

^{European Journal of Engineering Education, Vol 41, No 4, pp411-425}

keywords: design scenarios, knowledge of broader contexts, product archaeology, project-based design, undergraduate education

Advice from My Sister: The Resilience of Black Women in STEM

Monique Ross

^{Association for Women in Science, Summer 2016, pp 32-35}

A developmental model of research mentoring

Michael Loui and Renata Revelo

We studied mentoring relationships between undergraduate and graduate students in a summer undergraduate research program, over three years. Using a grounded theory approach, we created a model of research mentoring that describes how the roles of the mentor and the student can change. Whereas previous models of research mentoring ignored student roles and treated mentor roles as static, our model focuses on the development of the mentoring relationship over time. Our model explains how conflicts can occur if the mentor role does not match the maturity level of the student.

^{July 2016 issue of the journal College Teaching}

The influence of ABET accreditation practices on faculty approaches to teaching

Matt Ohland and Jaqi McNeil

This paper investigates the effect of ABET accreditation processes on quality teaching using thematic analysis of descriptions from faculty in open-ended survey questions and logistic regression of quantitative survey questions about their pedagogy. Ordinal logistic regression related faculty perspectives on accreditation terminology and processes to faculty teaching practices. There were 43 qualitative comments about ABET accreditation and 91 quantitative survey results used in this study. Faculty had overwhelmingly negative views regarding accreditation, believing that it adds to their workload, stifles their creativity, and distracts them from other important objectives including teaching. Faculty who express various negative views of either the goals or the practice of accreditation are less likely to engage in certain student-centered teaching practices. More positively, our findings show that faculty who tend to agree with the student-outcomes focus of the ABET criteria engage in richer educational experiences—they give students more writing assignments and allow students to learn collaboratively.

^{International Journal of Engineering Education 32, (3A), pp 1151-1159}

Identity, Critical Agency, and Engineering: An Affective Model for Predicting Engineering as a Career Choice

Allison Godwin, Geoff Potvin, Zahra Hazari, and Robynne Lock

Prior to college, many students have no experience with engineering, but some ultimately choose an engineering career. Women choose engineering at lower rates than men. This article uses critical engineering agency (CEA) to understand first-year students' attitudes and self-beliefs to predict the choice of an engineering career. We investigated how first-year students' math and physics identities and students' beliefs about the ability of science to improve the world predict choice of engineering as a career and whether these beliefs differ by gender. The data were from the Sustainability and Gender in Engineering survey distributed during fall 2011 (N = 6,772). Structural equation modeling was used to understand first-year students' affective beliefs for predicting engineering career choice. Math and physics identities are important for predicting engineering choice at the beginning of college. Recognition from others and interest in a subject are positive predictors of physics and math identities. Students' performance/competence beliefs alone are negative predictors of engineering career choice but are mediated by interest and recognition from others. Student identities and agency beliefs are significant predictors of engineering career choice, explaining 20% of the variance. We also found gender differences in students' math and physics identities and agency beliefs. This article emphasizes the importance of students' recognition beliefs and the importance of agency beliefs for women in predicting engineering career choice.

^{Journal of Engineering Education, 105(2), pp312-240}

Evaluation of current assessment methods in engineering entrepreneurship education   

Senay Purzer, Nicholas Fila,and Kavin Nataraja

Quality assessment is an essential component of education that allows educators to support student learning and improve educational programs. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the current state of assessment in engineering entrepreneurship education. We identified 52 assessment instruments covered in 29 journal articles and conference proceedings that focused on engineering entrepreneurship. We evaluated these instruments using the unified theory of validity as a framework. Our analysis identified a variety of means through which entrepreneurial knowledge, skills, and attitudes are assessed in engineering. Self- or peer-report surveys, some of which were originally developed in business contexts, were the primary tool used for assessment. Another common tool was project deliverables. The assessment instruments often lacked features that can help differentiate levels of competencies and hence had limited utility for formative purposes. We argue that engineering entrepreneurship education would benefit from a system of assessment instruments designed through rigorous methods and developed to assess constructs specific to entrepreneurial engineering.

^{Advances in Engineering Education, 5(1), 1-27}

keywords: assessment, Entrepreneurial Engineering, entrepreneurship education, literature Synthesis 

Preparing Engineers for the Workplace through Service Learning: Perceptions of EPICS Alumni

James Huff, Carla Zoltowski, and Bill Oakes

Service-learning programs that emphasize engineering design have been posited to bolster the professional preparedness of engineering alumni. However, we know little about how such programs actually prepare engineers for the workplace. Nor does prior literature fully explain how characteristics of these programs affect professional preparation. This study investigates how alumni perceive the impact of one service-learning program, Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS), in preparing them for the workplace. We seek to provide empirical and theoretical foundations about how this program affected the alumni's perceptions of how they were prepared for professional practice. This investigation was an embedded, sequential mixed-methods study, which began by administering a survey to 523 participants. On the basis of survey responses, we interviewed 27 participants and conducted a thematic analysis of transcripts to describe how participants related their EPICS experiences to the workplace. The findings describe how alumni perceived the role of EPICS in preparing them for the workplace. The thematic analysis reveals how alumni perceived the nature of their preparation through three themes: EPICS was a bridge from education to practice, EPICS provided a means for gaining workplace experience, and EPICS developed a variety of professional skills. Grounded in alumni perspectives, this study demonstrates a strong link between participating in service-learning activities and navigating the complexity of the workplace. Finally, we identify three key characteristics of EPICS that are transferable to other institutions. 

^{Journal of Engineering Education, Volume 105, Number 1, pp 43-69}

A cognitive mapping of the characteristics of engineering innovativeness with a comparative review of instruments to inform their assessment

Jessica Menold, Kathryn Jablokow, Senay Purzer, Dan Ferguson and Matt Ohland

Understanding, evaluating, and promoting individual innovativeness is a critical step in cultivating engineering leaders for the future. As a means of evaluating the gaps in current research related to innovativeness assessment, this paper analyzes ten measures and models of innovativeness through two lenses: (1) their internal vs. external point of reference (i.e., attribute vs. action); and (2) their relationship to key elements of cognitive function (i.e., cognitive level, style, and affect). From this review, it is clear that a comprehensive, rigorously validated psychometric instrument does not yet exist to assess the aptitudes, skills, knowledge, personal traits, and behaviors that are indicative of an innovative engineer. This work highlights the potential for such an instrument to help transform engineering education by enhancing student insights about innovation across programs. 

^{International Journal of Engineering Education, Volume 32, Number 1A, pp 64-83}

Guest Editorial, Problems in Big Data Analytics in Learning

Krishna Madhavan and Michael C. Richey

When the National Academy of Engineering issued its grand challenges – specifically the one on “advancing personalized learning” (National Academy of Engineering, 2008) – it called for the development of new instrumentation, tools, and methodologies to bring learning closer to the learners and their personal choices. Big data plays a critical role in beginning to meet this grand challenge. A tremendous amount of data on students' learning and behavioral experiences is captured in a wide variety of institutional systems. These data range from student demographics and socio-economic backgrounds to data about academic progress and extend down to individual mouse clicks when students are accessing course materials or their time spent viewing a screen of course information. Data captured from automated software-based learning environments in combination with more traditional forms of educational data provide a unique opportunity to understand how learning occurs and to engineer these processes in unprecedented ways.

Computer science teacher professional development in the United States: a review of studies published between 2004 and 2014

Muhsin Menekse

While there has been a remarkable interest to make computer science a core K-12 academic subject in the United States, there is a shortage of K-12 computer science teachers to successfully implement computer sciences courses in schools. In order to enhance computer science teacher capacity, training programs have been offered through teacher professional development. In this study, the main goal was to systematically review the studies regarding computer science professional development to understand the scope, context, and effectiveness of these programs in the past decade (2004–2014). Based on 21 journal articles and conference proceedings, this study explored: (1) Type of professional development organization and source of funding, (2) professional development structure and participants, (3) goal of professional development and type of evaluation used, (4) specific computer science concepts and training tools used, (5) and their effectiveness to improve teacher practice and student learning.

^{Computer Science Education, Vol. 25, Iss. 4, 2015}

A Tale of Two STEMs

David Radcliffe

^{Dec 2015 edition of ASEE PRISM as the Last Word}

Additional Resources

Key Publications by Engineering Education Faculty