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

虽然目前大多数关于教与学的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历（即课外/课外经历）的影响。尤其是工程系的学生，他们在课堂之外有丰富多样的学习机会，比如竞赛团队、本科研究经历和服务学习组织，这些都巩固和巩固了他们从工程课程中获得的知识。该项目的目标是确定工程专业学生参加课外/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/课外项目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，告诉他们如何通过大学工程项目个性化他们的道路，关注他们感兴趣的主题，找到加强现有技能或学习新技能的途径。课外/课外环境还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——这对来自工程领域代表性不足群体的学生尤其重要——并培养出更有技术能力的工程劳动力。此外，尽管以工程为重点的课外/课外经验的某些特征可能难以在课堂环境中重现，但其他特征可能为可以增强课堂学习的替代教学实践提供灵感。这个项目回答了两个基本的研究问题：(1)以工程为重点的课外/课外活动对学生的学术和专业发展有哪些具体特征的影响；(2)课外/课外活动的哪些具体特征对学生的学术和专业发展影响最大。本研究采用两阶段设计，第一阶段实施静力学概念量表、工程专业技能评估、通过自我效能感调查来衡量学习成果的成就，包括对基本工程概念的掌握、专业技能的发展和自我效能感。在第二阶段，招募第一阶段的参与者进行访谈，以揭示第一阶段研究结果的可能解释。这项工作中使用的方法将为其他非工程学科的学者对他们自己学科特定的课外/课外活动进行评估，以确定是否存在类似的模式奠定基础。本研究中使用的框架还将允许其他学者探索与本研究未涵盖的以工程为重点的课外/课外参与相关的因素，例如，确定课外/课外经历如何独特地影响来自代表性不足群体的工程专业学生。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.