Research Initiation Grant: Studying the Impact of Engineering Outreach

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This engineering education research initiation grant will help universities understand the effectiveness of outreach programs on engineering and faculty. Since outreach programs are common at many universities, there potential to utilize these programs for informal education of current engineering students. This project will research how to use these programs for both outreach and to support learning.The broader significance and importance of this project will be to inform other university outreach programs how to be more efficient. The PI's plan to actively disseminate their findings to a broad community, thus potentially impacting recruitment and retention of a large number of students currently under-represented in engineering degree programs. This project overlaps with NSF's strategic goals of transforming the frontiers through preparation of an engineering workforce with new capabilities and expertise. 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.