Does Active Learning Build Grit?

对保持强劲、充满活力的美国经济和提高全球竞争力的担忧，促使美国努力增加STEM专业毕业生的数量和多样性。工科学生在大学前两年的流失率很高，女性和少数族裔学生的流失率更高。多个利益相关者已经进行了研究投资，投资于各种策略来改善这种情况，许多努力都集中在学生表现的知识获取方面。相比之下，有研究努力探索更关注学生表现的动机和自我调节方面的策略。人们一直在努力研究一种衡量这些方面的结构，即毅力。毅力，被定义为对长期目标坚定不移的兴趣和毅力，对于那些试图实现获得工程学位这一具有挑战性的长期目标的人来说可能很重要。本研究是一个主动学习模型，旨在评估工程专业学生毅力性格特质的影响及其与保留率的关系。它将以种族和经济状况不同的工科本科生为样本进行。该团队正在使用一种实验设计方法，利用对对照组的反应来评估成长心态的毅力特征并建立乐观情绪。研究问题旨在调查主动学习是否在工程力学专业学生中建立了坚毅的性格特征，以及增强的坚毅是否会带来其他成功的结果，如在专业上的保留和在学位上的进步。智力价值包括治疗方法，以探索主动学习对学生毅力、学生保留和课程顺序的影响。研究的更广泛的影响是一种主动学习设计模型，可以提供对学生保留和完成课程和学位完成的影响的见解。此外，还将特别关注调查女性和未被充分代表的少数族裔，她们离开STEM专业的比例在STEM劳动力中过高。本项目由美国国家科学基金会电子病历核心研究计划资助。ECR项目强调在该领域产生基础知识的基础STEM教育研究。

Concerns about maintaining a strong, vibrant US economy and improving global competitiveness have led to efforts to increase the number and diversity of graduates in STEM majors. Attrition among engineering students is high in the first two years of college studies, and even higher among women and underrepresented minority students. There have been research investments made by multiple stakeholders that have invested in various strategies to improve the situation with many efforts focused on knowledge-acquisition aspects of student performance. In contrast there are research efforts to explore strategies that are more focused on motivation and self-regulatory aspects of student performance. There has been an increasing effort to investigate a construct that measures these aspects called grit. Grit, which is defined as unwavering interest in and perseverance for a long-term goal, is likely to be important to individuals trying to achieve the challenging, long-term goal of attaining an engineering degree.The proposed study is an active learning model that evaluates the impacts on grit character trait and its relations to student retention in engineering. It will be conducted with an ethnically and economically diverse sample of undergraduate engineering students. The team is using an experimental design approach in which response to the control groups is utilized to evaluate grit characteristics of growth mindset and build optimism. The research questions seek to investigate if active learning builds the character trait of grit among engineering students while they learn in a sequence of engineering mechanics courses and whether increased grit leads to other success outcomes such as retention in the major and progress toward degree. The intellectual merit includes the treatment approach to explore active learning impacts on student grit upon student retention and course sequencing. The broader impacts of research is that an active learning design model that can provide insights to the impact on student retention and completion of coursework and degree completion. Also there will be special focus on investigating women and underrepresented minorities who leave STEM majors at disproportionately higher rates in the STEM workforce. This project is supported by NSFs EHR Core Research Program. The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in the field.