Does Active Learning Build Grit?

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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.