THE ROLE OF SERVICE-LEARNING: IMPROVING ENGINEERING EDUCATION; ATTRACTING WOMEN INTO ENGINEERING

使用科学和技术在现实世界中的全面应用的教学战略往往更有效地吸引和保持妇女和代表性不足的少数群体的兴趣。这项建议侧重于服务学习，这是一种将积极的公民意识与学生学习相结合的教育法。服务性学习的一个主要组成部分是将学术课程作为一个综合特征加以强化。与此同时，这些服务项目满足了开展服务的社区的真正需求。该项目将审查参加工程学校的服务学习更好地吸引和留住女工程师的结果。除了课程成绩或毕业率等传统的成功评估外，这项研究还将衡量参与者对自我效能感的看法、他们对工程本质的看法以及他们对基本工程概念的理解。这项提案的总体目标是衡量服务学习计划作为教授工程学的教学方法的有效性，并研究服务学习计划如何吸引比目前在工程专业学生中所代表的更多样化的一组工程专业学生。对塔夫茨和普渡大学三个成熟的服务学习项目的研究将使用既定的方法来测试自我效能感和对工程本质的理解，并将开发新的工具来评估学生对工程设计概念的理解。这项研究的结果可能会对工程专业毕业生的数量和多样性以及他们有效解决现实世界问题的能力产生重大影响。如果服务学习被证明为所有学生提供了对工程及其在社会中的角色的更全面的了解，那么服务学习计划的实施将通过招收和毕业更多样化、更有能力的学生来增强一般劳动力，以满足未来的需求。

Instructional strategies that use holistic, real-world applications of science and technology tend to be more effective for attracting and retaining the interest of women and underrepresented minorities. This proposal focuses on service-learning, a pedagogy which combines active citizenship with student learning. A major component of service learning is that it serves to enhance the academic curriculum as an integrated feature. At the same time, the service projects meet genuine needs of the communities in which and with whom they take place. This project will examine the outcome that participation in service-learning in schools of engineering better attracts and retains women engineers. Along with traditional assessment of success such as course grades or graduation rates, this research will measure participants' perceptions of self-efficacy, their perceptions of the nature of engineering, and their understanding of fundamental engineering concepts. The overall goals of this proposal are to measure the effectiveness of service-learning programs as pedagogical methods for teaching engineering and to examine how service-learning programs attract a more diverse set of engineering students than is currently represented in the population of engineering students. The study of three well-established service learning programs at Tufts and Purdue will use established methods to test self-efficacy and understanding of the nature of engineering and will also develop new instruments to evaluate student understanding of the concepts of engineering design.The results of this research could have significant impact on the number and diversity of engineering graduates and on their ability to effectively address real-world problems. If service learning is shown to provide a more holistic understanding of engineering and its role in society for all students, then implementation of service learning programs will enhance the general workforce by recruiting and graduating more diverse and more competent students to meet the needs of the future.