Research Initiation: Collaborative Proposal: Diversifying Paths through Engineering with Extra-/Co-Curricular Participation

虽然目前大多数教学研究都是在课堂上进行的，但有证据表明，学生的学习质量也受到课堂外经验（即课外/课外经验）的影响。特别是工程专业的学生可以在课堂外获得各种各样的学习机会-例如竞赛团队，本科生研究经验和服务学习组织-这加强了他们通过工程课程获得的知识。本项目的目的是确定工程专业学生参与课外/课外活动对他们发展成为专业工程师的影响。了解以工程为重点的课外/课外课程为学生提供的具体好处，将使那些在职业和学术咨询职位上的人能够为学生提供有针对性的建议，指导他们如何通过大学工程课程个性化他们的途径，重点关注他们感兴趣的主题，并找到加强现有技能或学习新技能的途径。课外/共同课程设置也为学生提供了一个轻松愉快的机会，在真实的环境中练习工程技能，从而提高信心-这一特征对于工程中代表性不足的群体的学生尤其重要-以及技术上更胜任的工程队伍。此外，虽然以工程为重点的课外/共同课程体验的某些特征可能具有挑战性，在课堂环境中重现，但其他特征可能会为替代教学实践提供灵感，从而提高课堂内的学习效果。（1）学生的学术和专业发展的哪些具体特点受到以工程为重点的课外/课外活动的影响，及（2）课外活动的哪些特点对学生的学业及专业发展影响最大。本研究分两个阶段进行，第一阶段实施静态概念量表、工程专业技能评估和自我效能调查，以衡量学生的学习成果，包括对基本工程概念的掌握，专业技能和自我效能的发展。在第二阶段，第一阶段的参与者被招募进行访谈，以发现第一阶段研究结果的可能解释。在这项工作中使用的方法将奠定基础，在非工程学科的其他学者进行评估自己的学科特定的课外/课外活动，以确定是否存在类似的模式。本研究所采用的架构亦可让其他学者探讨本研究未涵盖的与以工程为重点的课外/课外活动参与有关的因素，例如，确定额外/共同课程经验独特地影响来自代表性不足群体的工程专业学生。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值进行评估来支持和更广泛的影响审查标准。

While most current research in teaching and learning is performed in the classroom, evidence suggests that the quality of a student's learning is also affected by experiences outside of the classroom (i.e. extra-/co-curricular experiences). Engineering students in particular have available to them a rich variety of learning opportunities outside of the classroom - such as competition teams, undergraduate research experiences, and service learning organizations - which reinforce and strengthen the knowledge they gain through engineering coursework. The goal of this project is to determine the impact of engineering students' participation in extra-/co-curricular activities on their development into professional engineers. Understanding the specific benefits that engineering-focused extra-/co-curricular programs offer to students will allow those in career and academic advising positions to provide targeted advice to students on how to personalize their pathways through college engineering program, focusing on topics that are interesting to them and finding avenues for strengthening existing skills or learning new ones. The extra-/co-curricular setting also gives students a relaxed, enjoyable opportunity to practice engineering skills in an authentic environment, leading to improved confidence - a feature that is particularly important for students from underrepresented groups in engineering - and a more technically competent engineering workforce. Further, although certain features of the engineering-focused extra-/co-curricular experience may be challenging to reproduce in a classroom setting, other features may provide inspiration for alterative teaching practices which can enhance learning within the classroom.This project answers two fundamental research questions: (1) What specific features of students' academic and professional development are affected by engineering-focused extra-/co-curricular participation, and (2) What specific features of extra-/co-curricular activities most influence students' academic and professional development' The research has a two-phased design where the first phase implements the Statics Concept Inventory, the Engineering Professional Skills Assessment, and a self-efficacy survey to measure achievement of learning outcomes including mastery of fundamental engineering concepts, development of professional skills, and self-efficacy. In the second phase, participants from Phase 1 are recruited for interviews in order to uncover possible explanations for the research findings in Phase 1. The approach used in this work will lay the groundwork for other scholars in non-engineering disciplines to perform assessments of their own discipline-specific extra-/co-curricular activities to determine if similar patterns exist. The framework used in this research will also allow other scholars to explore factors related to engineering-focused extra-/co-curricular participation which are not covered in this research, for example, determining how the extra-/co-curricular experience uniquely affects engineering students from underrepresented groups.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.