Jennifer Turns - US grants

This project will take a research-informed approach to understanding how undergraduate engineering majors progress in their studies of engineering design. Its goal is to better understand and describe design expertise and a learner's growth towards acquiring that expertise. In this work, the investigators intend to undertake research in three areas:
(1) The development of a continuum of design expertise as a way of describing learners' growth toward acquiring expertise, (2) A study of design expertise that will provide information to help populate the continuum, and (3) The demonstration of a research-informed approach in design education through the use of the continuum to enhance and assess student
learning of engineering design during their cooperative (coop) experiences. This research should help us to better understand how students learn design principles in engineering, and the continuum, itself, may be of great help to engineering faculty in their efforts to teach design.

The instructional development program of the University of Washington provides a rich context for learning about the challenges that faculty face in efforts to enhance their teaching, and how to help faculty face these challenges. This project will:

1. Document the unique instruction-related concerns/questions of engineering faculty and the types of responses that fulfill these concerns.
2. Document the complexities associated with designing and executing instructional development services in the context of engineering.
3. Document cultural factors important for engineering instructional development.
4. Share this information with others interested in supporting faculty efforts to enhance/modify their teaching (including campus level instructional developers, workshop designers, national reform groups, and even faculty themselves).

We propose to take advantage of these opportunities through a combination of research and website development activities. Specifically, we propose to conduct research on successful instructional development efforts through a combination of debriefing interviews and case study observations. The results of this study will be available to engineering educators and other programs through an innovative user-centered website -
the Engineering Teaching Source. The content of the website will be derived from the insights gained from the debriefing interviews and case study observations. The design of the website will emphasize multiple paths by which faculty / instructional developers can find information.

Our proposed research will provide insight into the needs of faculty as they change their teaching practices and provides the engineering education community with this insight through the design and publication of the Engineering Teaching Source. This work will benefit all who are interested in helping engineering faculty address teaching challenges, including instructional developers in campus-wide centers, those who create workshops for engineering faculty, those funding and running systematic reform efforts, and faculty
themselves. This work will complement the spectrum of efforts to enhance the teaching of engineering by focusing on the people most pivotal to the teaching - the faculty themselves.

The central idea of the proposed work is to explore portfolio creation as a means of promoting (and studying) knowledge integration by engineering students. The portfolio activities will build on existing strengths of the engineering curriculum by providing students with opportunities to reflect on their accomplishments, see and articulate connections between engineering and their accomplishments, and develop more integrated conceptual structures associated with engineering. Three objectives are to (1) document the nature of engineering students' conceptual structures in their engineering discipline, with specific attention to how integrated the conceptual structures are, (2) use what is known about portfolios in education to develop an intervention that makes it possible for engineering students to document and refine their conceptual structures in engineering, and (3) identify the learning affordances and cognitive challenges associated with the intervention. The work will be accomplished through a longitudinal study and a series of classroom studies. In the longitudinal study, two student cohorts will be set up in which each student will develop one portfolio per year of participation. Longitudinal study participants will construct portfolios as part of participation in an extracurricular program. In the classroom studies, the effects of portfolio construction will be explored in the context of individual courses.

The education plan builds on the portfolio and knowledge integration emphases of the work. The plan includes commitments to: a) continue using portfolio assignments in the PI's courses, b) support portfolio development by faculty and students interested in portfolios, c) provide mentoring/research experiences for undergraduates, and d) create teaching modules that build on the portfolios.

In terms of the broader impacts of the project underrepresented minorities will be over-sampled from the available student populations. The portfolios will represent a unique and useful information source for employers, students, and others with interest in engineering education. Also, the impact of the work will be on the engineering graduates who are better prepared to contribute to the engineering profession.

The Division of Engineering Education & Centers (ENG/EEC) has agreed to co-fund this project.

This research will address the question of whether integration and reflection activities via developing a professional portfolio have an impact on students? lifelong learning competencies, their development of professional identity, and the ability to integrate their knowledge. It will advance the scholarship on undergraduate engineering student learning using a three-pronged quasi-experiment in portfolio development. The three experimental treatments are: (1) an academic year-long program in which students develop a comprehensive professional portfolio, (2) a quarter-long program in which students develop a focused professional portfolio, and (3) a competition that invites students to develop professional portfolios on their own and submit them for consideration for an award. These treatments require different levels of commitment from students who participate in them, as well as institutions that host them. In addition to investigating the impact of these three treatments, the resources associated with offering each treatment will be documented in order to better understand the scalability of each.

To effectively prepare for engineering in the 21st century, students must acquire the knowledge, skills, and attitudes relevant to engineering; the type of integrated understanding of these competencies that is a hallmark of expertise; and the life-long learning skills and professional engineering identity that enable students to apply their understandings in rapidly changing contexts and circumstances. Engineering education researchers are only beginning to understand how to effectively and feasibly support the development of life-long learning skills, professional engineering identities, and integrated knowledge. In order to accomplish these complex and interrelated goals, students need a variety of learning experiences. They also need opportunities to understand and articulate what they have learned from their educational experiences and how what they have learned relates to their futures as engineers?opportunities for both foundational and critical reflection. This project has the potential to transform undergraduate engineering education, not by changing the curriculum of existing programs, but by enabling engineering students to achieve the outcomes espoused by those programs and to develop into lifelong learners. If successful, the ideas proposed in this project will be scalable to fit the needs of almost any college of engineering.

This project is a two-year engineering pathways study that is extending research findings from the NSF funded Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education's (CAEE's) Academic Pathways Study (APS). The APS conducted a series of longitudinal and cross-sectional studies of undergraduate engineering students' learning experiences and their transition to the workplace. In this project, the experiences of early career professionals (ECPs) are being studied in order to better understand what educational institutions and employers can do to facilitate the transition from engineering student to practicing engineering professional. More specifically, the project is conducting a mixed-method study of two research questions: (1) What factors or combinations of factors facilitate the transition of ECPs into a professional culture, and their conceptions of and preparation for their specific professional careers? (2) How, and to what extent do the factors that influence the professional development of ECPs contribute to their future careers? The proposed research is grounded in social cognitive career theory that has been shown to be a useful framework for exploring engineering career persistence. The project includes a rigorous evaluation plan coordinated by an independent evaluator to monitor the progress of the project and to study evaluation research questions about the integration of the APS results and the impact of collaboration.

Through the S-STEM project "Engineering the Husky Promise," the University of Washington (UW) establishes a scholarship program for talented low-income undergraduates in UW's College of Engineering, thereby supporting the "Husky Promise" - a guarantee for full tuition and fee scholarships for Pell Grant-eligible Washington State residents. In the S-STEM program, each student is awarded a scholarship for up to $9000 per year for up to two years, depending on financial need. The program supports at least 15 students per year, and more, if not all students have this much unmet need. The significant financial support offered by S-STEM scholarships provides financially disadvantaged students additional time to focus on their studies, because they can work fewer hours at part-time jobs. Beyond the scholarships, College of Engineering professors serve as mentors to S-STEM Scholars, especially through undergraduate research, and the scholars are offered an opportunity to develop a professional portfolio. The College also reserves slots for scholarship recipients in its Engineering Community, an exciting experiential learning opportunity for engineering and pre-engineering students. Four Resident Advisers, mostly engineering students, connect Community members with resources and programs and act as peer mentors. On-site academic support, such as drop-in advising sessions, registration assistance, departmental and corporate information sessions, and tutoring sessions, is provided by the College of Engineering. Social and informational events are planned by both the Advisors and the College.

Specific objectives for "Engineering the Husky Promise" are that:
- minority students underrepresented in engineering, including those from local programs (Washington State GEAR-UP, MESA, and Rainier Scholars), receive at least 20% of the S-STEM scholarships;
- women receive at least 35% of the S-STEM scholarships;
- transfer students, of which half will be from UW MESA partner Community Colleges, receive at least 25% of the S-STEM scholarships,
- 81% of the S-STEM freshmen be admitted to a UW College of Engineering Department by the end of the sophomore year;
- 95% of S-STEM transfer students from community colleges graduate from a College of Engineering Department within three years; and
- at least 60% of S-STEM recipients participate in undergraduate research with College of Engineering faculty.

In order to serve students in the future and build on the basis of the S-STEM program, the College of Engineering is raising a sustainable endowment for additional scholarships.

The gap between our understanding of how engineering students learn and current practices in engineering education continues to grow. Personas are tools from the field of user-centered design that hold promise for helping engineering educators use the growing body of research findings to improve the design of educational experiences. Based on promising preliminary work, this project at the University of Washington uses personas as the basis for two interventions: educator workshops and educator design sessions. This project focuses on how educators leverage the personas in each of the interventions. This rigorous study of a new faculty development approach helps to transfer important research findings into the minds and hands of those who can make the best use of them - engineering faculty, staff, and students. The PIs take a design experiment approach featuring multiple iterations, ongoing analysis, and documentation of the activities. The team includes a seasoned faculty developer, an internationally recognized researcher of the engineering student experience, and a researcher who has studied both the engineering student experience and the thinking processes of engineering educators. This research has the potential to be transformative through accelerating the rate at which research on engineering student learning influences teaching and learning practices. By helping engineering faculty, policy-makers, and academic support staff to make better use of educational research, including important research on the experiences of under-represented students, this project is improving these experiences and the quality of engineering education more broadly. The results of this study will be an adaptive persona model, useful in conveying engineering education research results to engineering faculty.

This engineering education research project seeks to shed light on past change efforts in engineering education in order to facilitate continuing improvement in the programs that educate the future engineering workforce. The project will study the development of prospective change agents by bringing together graduate students and successful leaders and change agents, then collect, analyze, and publish interviews. The analysis will be used to inform how innovations in teaching and learning can be better integrated into existing engineering curricula.

The broader significance and importance of this project is that it both sheds light on how change happens in engineering program, and engages future leaders in collecting and understanding how change has occurred in the past. The stories of the change agents will be made available through efforts at wide dissemination. This project overlaps with NSF's strategic goals of transforming the frontiers by enhancing research infrastructure and data access to broaden research capabilities. Additionally NSF's goal of innovating for society is enabled by creating results and research that are useful for society by informing educational policy and practices.

The culture of a program or department plays a significant role in effective, inclusive, and innovative STEM education. Despite immense efforts to diversify the student body in engineering programs, research suggests that department culture continues to challenge engineering education and the educators who are preparing the next generation of engineers. For example, too often engineering departments reflect a narrow, stereotypical view of what it means to be an engineer. Women and other underrepresented minorities who do not fit this view do not identify with engineering and this can lead to dissatisfaction and disengagement. This project implements a unique educational experience where students and faculty are immersed in a culture of doing engineering with industry engineers that in turn fosters an identity of being an engineer. This new culture will be created through a shared department vision and a deep immersion in industry and engineering practice. Some of the changes include faculty participation in industry, makeathons that connect industry professionals with students, and changes in how the department prioritizes teaching, student research, industry connections, and faculty mentoring. Along with these activities, this project serves to investigate the effects of this new culture on the identity of students and faculty, and how these identity changes affect students' engagement, performance, and commitment to engineering. Identity describes who people think they are, what they think they can do and be, and where and with whom they think they belong. It is a pivotal factor in one's commitment and persistence in engineering, notably for women and minorities. Identity development is a social process realized through culture. Understanding how identities affect students, particularly females, could transform how we teach STEM K-16. Such knowledge will allow educators to target activities that produce the strongest effect on identity and be mindful of those that negatively impact identity. The result is better retention for a more diverse student body.

More specifically, during the project, changes to the engineering program and to student and faculty identities will be monitored through interviews, surveys, and many other tools. Results of the study will lead to a clearer understanding of the changes that promote engineering identities, particularly in women, and how such identities affect students' sense of belonging in a program and their persistence in the major. The study will also lead to a better understanding of the factors that influence faculty identity, and how these richer identities affect how they view their roles and their students. Key activities of this project include: (1) the creation of opportunities for students to do realistic engineering, (2) an industry immersion experience for faculty and teacher training, (3) revising the curriculum to include connections to practice, (4) and implementing reflection and portfolios for assessment of professional engineering identity development. In the curriculum, this immersion will be achieved by integrating experiential learning throughout as the connecting thread. Housed in a mechanical engineering department, this project has the potential to impact engineering education by offering a model and best practices in which the engineering identities of students and faculty can be transformed by the immersion in real-world engineering. This project is jointly funded by the Division of Undergraduate Education; the Division of Engineering Education and Centers; the Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation; the Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems; and the Division of Industrial Innovation and Partnerships; reflecting the alignment of this project with the respective goals of the divisions and their programs.

Reflection, as a form of thinking, involves stepping out of a situation and creating knowledge. In an educational context, reflection plays a critical role in professional practice, learning from experience, and successful implementation of teaching methods such as active learning. In supporting student learning, educators can potentially improve and transform student learning through reflection activities. Reflection activities can be modest in terms of the amount of time required and thus can be added to existing instructional efforts to help magnify the impact of many types of educational activities and help individuals go beyond simply doing better. Reflection activities may be a significant tool in efforts to critically improve engineering education, address issues such as diversity and retention, and support learning goals such as innovation and global competencies. Yet, within engineering education, reflection and reflection activities are understudied. The proposed work will establish and refine instruments that will help educators and scholars better understand student engagement in reflection activities, specifically their reactions to engaging in reflection activities and their self-reported knowledge gains. These instruments will be critical for helping engineering educators bring reflection activities into their teaching through informed choices and creating opportunities for deeper and more nuanced scholarship on reflection activities.

The intent of this study is to explore undergraduate engineering students' knowledge gains using a common approach so that reflection activities can be compared more readily. Another intent is to better understand student reactions to the reflection activities in a way that may serve many purposes such as interpreting study results and identifying ways to refine activities. A multi-week study with undergraduate engineering students culminating in interviews will capture students' perspectives when talking about reflection. These perspectives will be used to refine the conceptual models related to knowledge from and reactions to engaging in reflection activities. Usability studies of survey items and a principal component analysis will also be used to systematically develop and validate survey instruments. Finally, a study focusing on a selected reflection activity (e.g. exam wrappers) will be used for further survey validation. The proposed work features a systematic, rigorous process using best practices in survey instrument development, and in supporting educators in operationalizing learning goals through reflection activities. To this latter end, our proposed work includes both scholarly and practical dissemination.