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Engineering, a field that has shaped the world’s industrial and technological base, is ripe for an influx of Latino undergraduate students. Given U.S. Latino population increases, what is the trajectory of Latino participation in... more
Engineering, a field that has shaped the world’s industrial and technological base, is ripe for an influx of Latino undergraduate students. Given U.S. Latino population increases, what is the trajectory of Latino participation in engineering education? Using an interdisciplinary lens, we critically examine Latino trends in undergraduate engineering education in the United States. We find that Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) are particularly successful at graduating Latino engineers and propose explanatory analyses.
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According to the National Science Foundation, increasing the proportion of veterans pursuing engineering degrees will help meet USA's need for more engineers. The USA offers benefits to military veterans to pay for higher education... more
According to the National Science Foundation, increasing the proportion of veterans pursuing engineering degrees will help meet USA's need for more engineers. The USA offers benefits to military veterans to pay for higher education and they bring valuable assets from their service experience to their engineering education. More research is needed to improve institutional efforts to help veterans integrate these assets into their engineering education. In this paper, we draw on focus group data to explore transition issues faced by student veterans as they move from the military to higher education to pursue their undergraduate engineering degrees. We consider transition from the military and transition to the university, focusing on institutional policies and practices, co-curricular supports, and the relationship between service experiences and engineering study.
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This session will engage participants in how to apply multiple qualitative research methods to examine emerging issues in engineering education. The focus will be on using qualitative methods — grounded theory, thematic analysis, and... more
This session will engage participants in how to apply multiple qualitative research methods to examine emerging issues in engineering education. The focus will be on using qualitative methods — grounded theory, thematic analysis, and content analysis — across multiple data collection methods (individual interviews, focus groups, key informant interviews, and policy/programmatic artifacts) and across several institutions. Benefits and challenges associated with data collection, synthesis, analysis, and triangulation across multiple research sites will be discussed, as well as the important role of theoretical frameworks in designing engineering education inquiry. It is expected that participants will gain a greater appreciation of qualitative methods that can be used to answer important questions in engineering education.
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Based on in-depth qualitative interviews with student veterans in the United States pursuing Bachelor’s degrees inengineering across four institutions, we present findings relating military leadership and its application to... more
Based on in-depth qualitative interviews with student veterans in the United States pursuing Bachelor’s degrees inengineering across four institutions, we present findings relating military leadership and its application to engineeringeducation. Our findings address three themes: (1) how leadership skills are learned, (2) motivation to be a leader, and (3)translation into, and enactment of military leadership skills in, engineering education. The interviews show that leadershipskills and experiences acquired in the military play an important role in the academic experiences and success of studentveterans in engineering (SVEs). Findings can help inform strategies and programs to encourage more SVEs to translatetheir leadership skills to an academic setting in an asset-based framework. Providing leadership opportunities for SVEs inthe classroom has the potential to increase their engagement in engineering, strengthen their pathways to professionalengineering practice, and provide impo...
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This special session will engage participants in how to apply multiple qualitative research methods to explore the experiences of students, particularly marginalized populations. Throughout the session, we will use our insights and... more
This special session will engage participants in how to apply multiple qualitative research methods to explore the experiences of students, particularly marginalized populations. Throughout the session, we will use our insights and experiences from our collaborative research on student veterans in engineering as an example. The session focuses on using multiple data collection methods (interviews and focus groups) across several institutions. We introduce and discuss the key event timeline and identity circle as qualitative research tools that can be used to answer important questions in engineering education for veterans and other understudied populations. We emphasize the importance of partnerships in such research. Benefits and challenges associated with data collection, synthesis, and analysis, across multiple research sites will be discussed.
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Student veterans have become an increasing presence in higher education. We seek to understand the role of the military as a pathway into engineering for student veteran engineers as well as investigate the character and content of their... more
Student veterans have become an increasing presence in higher education. We seek to understand the role of the military as a pathway into engineering for student veteran engineers as well as investigate the character and content of their educational experiences. The results of seven focus groups with 29 student veterans indicate that the decision to major in engineering is often, but not always, related to their service. Veteran students are often open with faculty about their veteran status, however they are less likely to reveal it to other students. Veterans believe that their status as a veteran is a significant asset in engineering studies but that their age is less so.
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Active military and student veterans navigate engineering education in ways both similar to and different from their civilian counterparts. This Work in Progress describes variation in institutional environments through interviews with... more
Active military and student veterans navigate engineering education in ways both similar to and different from their civilian counterparts. This Work in Progress describes variation in institutional environments through interviews with campus administrators and inspection of university websites at four institutions. Three emerging themes are identified: 1) the presence/absence of key student policies, 2) variation in student support services, and 3) gaps in provision of such services. Interviews provide data on the challenges faced and assets brought by veterans, from the point of view of administrators. We find that serving veterans is an area of recent and increasing importance to these institutions and that the level of services offered is evolving to include veterans resource centers, training for students and faculty on veterans' issues, and web portals to access veteran-specific information.
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The University of San Diego (USD)'s NSF ADVANCE grant, AFFIRM (Advancement of Female Faculty: Institutional climate, Recruitment and Mentoring), focuses on addressing issues related to race and gender for faculty in Science,... more
The University of San Diego (USD)'s NSF ADVANCE grant, AFFIRM (Advancement of Female Faculty: Institutional climate, Recruitment and Mentoring), focuses on addressing issues related to race and gender for faculty in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Although a majority of undergraduate students majoring in most STEM disciplines at USD are female, there are not nearly that many women faculty. As part of the grant proposal, the AFFIRM team was promised two new faculty positions by the Provost. In Fall 2013, the team met with the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and the Dean of the School of Engineering and the idea of hiring a faculty cohort to facilitate mentoring, diversity, and interdisciplinarity emerged and was approved. Over 200 candidates from diverse backgrounds applied. The candidates that came for on-campus interviews were so impressive that the Provost and Deans agreed to additional hiring opportunities, leading to a cohort of eight female faculty in the STEM fields including four women of color. In this work-in-progress, we discuss our innovative cohort hiring process, and share feedback from members of the cohort, and lessons learned. This innovative process could serve as a model for other campuses.
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The Multiple Institution Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development (MIDFIELD) is a unique research resource offering student record data at an unprecedented scale. This special session aims to introduce participants... more
The Multiple Institution Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development (MIDFIELD) is a unique research resource offering student record data at an unprecedented scale. This special session aims to introduce participants to MIDFIELD including the data that it contains and some key results from research using MIDFIELD, explore how to conduct research with such a resource, and explain how participants can access MIDFIELD. Understanding what data is available in MIDFIELD and how to access it will help researchers decide if this is a useful resource for their own research.
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Chemical Engineering (ChE) is one of the engineering disciplines with the highest participation of women. This article describes theexperiences of Black and White women in chemical engineering programs that stand out because they attract... more
Chemical Engineering (ChE) is one of the engineering disciplines with the highest participation of women. This article describes theexperiences of Black and White women in chemical engineering programs that stand out because they attract and retain women athigher rates than peer institutions. We use a mixed-methods approach, quantitatively describing the trajectories of Black and Whitestudents at three Selected and seven Other institutions using data from a large, multi-institution dataset and qualitatively describingthe experiences of seven Black and nine White women through focus groups at those Selected institutions that were identified as‘‘pockets of success’’ for women through the quantitative findings. We find that Black and White students have better outcomes atSelected institutions than at Other institutions; they are more likely to graduate within six years and more likely to remain in ChE.We find through focus groups that women are attracted to their institutions and departments due to institutional reputation andidentify six reasons that these women stay in ChE at these institutions: Sisterhood, Real-World Experience, Real-World Examples,Faculty Caring, Sense of Accomplishment, and ‘‘I Got This Far.’’ We conclude that institutional reputation is a factor in studentschoosing the institution but that the elements of reputation are different at the Selected institutions. Persistence in ChE appears tobe most highly associated with relatedness. This can manifest through relatedness with other students, faculty who care, and thelarger professional community through real-world experiences and examples.
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The Multiple Institution Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development (MIDFIELD) is expanding to include 113 institutions and is being redesigned and archived to be more accessible to researchers. This special session... more
The Multiple Institution Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development (MIDFIELD) is expanding to include 113 institutions and is being redesigned and archived to be more accessible to researchers. This special session will describe how researchers can better use or gain access to MIDFIELD. At the conclusion of the session participants should be able to: describe MIDFIELD including common data elements, discuss how new variables can be derived from MIDFIELD, understand what is necessary to access the data on the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research, and define quantitative and qualitative data types and structures and outline research questions and methods of personal interest to them.
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The Multiple Institution Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development (MIDFIELD) is expanding from 14 to about 100 institutions across the USA. This special session aims to introduce participants to MIDFIELD, explore... more
The Multiple Institution Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development (MIDFIELD) is expanding from 14 to about 100 institutions across the USA. This special session aims to introduce participants to MIDFIELD, explore how to conduct research with such a resource, and explain how participants can access MIDFIELD.
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This workshop, similar to our 2018 FIE workshop but revised to reflect participant feedback, introduces data and tools for investigating undergraduate persistence metrics using R. Student record data are from MIDFIELD, a database of... more
This workshop, similar to our 2018 FIE workshop but revised to reflect participant feedback, introduces data and tools for investigating undergraduate persistence metrics using R. Student record data are from MIDFIELD, a database of registrars’ data from US institutions. The stratified data sample includes demographic, term, course, and degree information for 98,000 students from 1987 to 2016. The midfieldr package provides functions for determining persistence metrics such as graduation rates and for grouping findings by institution, program, sex, and race/ethnicity. The goal of the workshop is to share our data, methods, and metrics for intersectional research in student persistence. The workshop is designed for R beginners.
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How successful are undergraduate students who begin in another major and migrate into engineering disciplines after matriculation? In this work in progress, we present quantitative data on outcomes for engineering migrators disaggregated... more
How successful are undergraduate students who begin in another major and migrate into engineering disciplines after matriculation? In this work in progress, we present quantitative data on outcomes for engineering migrators disaggregated by discipline, race/ethnicity, and sex. The study includes over 73,000 engineering students from nine U.S. universities, including first-time-in-college and transfer students who ever majored in the most common engineering disciplines: Chemical, Civil, Electrical, Industrial, and Mechanical Engineering. Adopting an ecosystem mindset, we have developed metrics including the graduation rate of migrators and “migration yield” to uncover dynamic information, not afforded by the conventional pipeline model, about the successes of students who migrate among the top five engineering disciplines. Our data show that the graduation rates of migrators are typically higher than those of starters for all engineering majors studied. Migration yield varies by race/ethnicity-sex as well as discipline. Migration yield for Chemical, Electrical, Industrial and Mechanical Engineering shows a sex-based effect, whereas Civil shows a race/ethnicity-based effect.
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Understanding the experiences of first-generation students is important for expanding diversity and inclusion in engineering education. Some of these students may include the military as a part of their educational pathways. However,... more
Understanding the experiences of first-generation students is important for expanding diversity and inclusion in engineering education. Some of these students may include the military as a part of their educational pathways. However, there is little research on the experiences of firstgeneration student veterans in engineering education. This qualitative study seeks to address this gap. The investigation focuses on first-generation student veterans in engineering (FGSVEs) (n=15) who were interviewed as a part of a larger study of SVEs (n=60) on four college campuses. The study addressed the following research questions: (1) Why do FGSVEs decide to join the military? (2) Why do FGSVEs choose to major in engineering? Results suggest that these FGSVEs join the military to gain some direction and purpose in their lives and to pay for college. They primarily choose engineering as a pathway toward financial stability and to engage in creative problem solving. This study reveals that the m...
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Catherine E. Brawner is President of Research Triangle Educational Consultants. She received her Ph.D.in Educational Research and Policy Analysis from NC State University in 1996. She also has an MBA from Indiana University (Bloomington)... more
Catherine E. Brawner is President of Research Triangle Educational Consultants. She received her Ph.D.in Educational Research and Policy Analysis from NC State University in 1996. She also has an MBA from Indiana University (Bloomington) and a bachelor’s degree from Duke University. She specializes in evaluation and research in engineering education, computer science education, teacher education, and technology education. Dr. Brawner is a founding member and former treasurer of Research Triangle Park Evaluators, an American Evaluation Association affiliate organization and is a member of the American Educational Research Association and American Evaluation Association, in addition to ASEE. Dr. Brawner is also an Extension Services Consultant for the National Center for Women in Information Technology (NCWIT) and, in that role, advises computer science departments on diversifying their undergraduate student population. Dr. Brawner previously served as principal evaluator of the NSF-s...
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Using interviews with seven Black Student Veterans in Engineering (BSVEs) at three predominantly White institutions (PWIs), we explore how the identities of Black, Male, Veteran, and Engineering student are enacted during their... more
Using interviews with seven Black Student Veterans in Engineering (BSVEs) at three predominantly White institutions (PWIs), we explore how the identities of Black, Male, Veteran, and Engineering student are enacted during their undergraduate engineering experience. We approach this study informed by multiple dimensions of identity using an intersectional lens to answer three research questions: 1) Why did BSVEs join the military? 2) Why did BSVEs choose engineering? and 3) How do BSVEs enact their veteran, engineering, and racial identities while in school? We find that family influences, a desire to be part of something bigger than themselves, and economics were factors in BSVEs’ decision to join the military. Technical jobs in the military that often included exposure to engineers and engineering problems led them to the belief that as engineers, they would be able to solve many of the problems they faced while maintaining military hardware. All seven BSVEs claimed that their mili...
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Interest in increasing the number of engineering graduates in the United States and promoting gender equality and diversification of the profession has encouraged considerable research on women and minorities in engineering. Using a... more
Interest in increasing the number of engineering graduates in the United States and promoting gender equality and diversification of the profession has encouraged considerable research on women and minorities in engineering. Using a longitudinal comprehensive data set of more ...
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This study focuses on quantitative analyses of international and domestic students pursuing undergraduate degrees at institutions in the USA. Metrics used include representation at start of university studies, representation at graduation... more
This study focuses on quantitative analyses of international and domestic students pursuing undergraduate degrees at institutions in the USA. Metrics used include representation at start of university studies, representation at graduation and six-year graduation rate. Results are disaggregated by origin (domestic or international), sex (female and male), and major (engineering or non-engineering). Results show that more international students choose engineering than other majors. There are more men than women in engineering and this is more pronounced for international students. International students graduate at higher rates in engineering than domestic students by about 5%. This may reflect a tension between their higher academic qualifications but challenges of adjusting to studying in another country. These insights can be used to support student success.
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Abstract: An elective course on optoelectronic materials and devices offered at the University of San Diego is described. Main topics include band structure, semiconductor alloys, optical processes, photodetectors, light emitting diodes,... more
Abstract: An elective course on optoelectronic materials and devices offered at the University of San Diego is described. Main topics include band structure, semiconductor alloys, optical processes, photodetectors, light emitting diodes, laser diodes, fiber optics, and quantum wells. Laboratory projects and innovative pedagogical aspects of the course are also discussed.
In the spring of 2021, the University of San Diego’s Department of Integrated Engineering taught the course, “Integrated Approach to Energy”, the second offering of a new required course, to nine second-year engineering students. The... more
In the spring of 2021, the University of San Diego’s Department of Integrated Engineering taught the course, “Integrated Approach to Energy”, the second offering of a new required course, to nine second-year engineering students. The sociotechnical course covered modern energy concepts, with an emphasis on renewable energies and sustainability, and it exposed the students to other ways of being, knowing, and doing that deviated from the dominant masculine Western White colonial discourse. Following the course completion, we interviewed five students by using a semistructured protocol to explore how they perceived of and communicated about engineers and engineering. We sought to identify the takeaways from their course exposure to sustainability and the sociotechnical paradigm, which were central to the course. The findings suggest that the students were beginning to form sociotechnical descriptions, and that they were still developing their understanding and perceptions of engineers...
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The global pandemic of COVID-19 brought about the transition to Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) at higher education institutions across the United States, prompting both students and the faculty to rapidly adjust to a different modality... more
The global pandemic of COVID-19 brought about the transition to Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) at higher education institutions across the United States, prompting both students and the faculty to rapidly adjust to a different modality of teaching and learning. Other crises have induced disruptions to academic continuity (e.g., earthquakes, hurricanes), but not to the same extent as COVID-19, which has affected universities on a global scale. In this paper, we describe a qualitative case study where we interviewed 11 second-year Integrated Engineering students during the Spring 2020 semester to explore how they adapted to the transition to remote learning. Our results revealed several student challenges, how they used self-discipline strategies to overcome them, and how the faculty supported students in the classroom through a compassionate and flexible pedagogy. Faculty members showed compassion and flexibility by adjusting the curriculum and assessment and effectively communicati...
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This study focuses on how the approach to engineering matriculation affects choice of major. Using the eight institutions represented in the Multiple-Institution Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development, we compared... more
This study focuses on how the approach to engineering matriculation affects choice of major. Using the eight institutions represented in the Multiple-Institution Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development, we compared the majors at matriculation and at the third semester of 1) students who are directly admitted to a discipline 2) students who enter mandatory first-year engineering programs and 3) those
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Page 1. Session M2B 978-1-4244-4714-5/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE October 18 - 21, 2009, San Antonio, TX 39th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference M2B-1 Special Session - From Active Learning to Liberative Pedagogies: Alternative Teaching... more
Page 1. Session M2B 978-1-4244-4714-5/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE October 18 - 21, 2009, San Antonio, TX 39th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference M2B-1 Special Session - From Active Learning to Liberative Pedagogies: Alternative Teaching ...
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This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY