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

虽然目前的大多数教学研究都是在课堂上进行的，但有证据表明，学生的学习质量也会受到课外经验(即课外/课外经验)的影响。尤其是工科学生，他们可以在课堂之外获得丰富多样的学习机会--如竞赛团队、本科生研究经验和服务性学习组织--这些机会巩固和强化了他们通过工程课程获得的知识。这个项目的目标是确定工科学生参加课外/课外活动对他们成为专业工程师的影响。了解以工程为重点的课外/联合课程计划为学生提供的具体好处，将使那些担任职业和学术咨询职位的人能够就如何通过大学工程计划个性化他们的道路向学生提供有针对性的建议，专注于他们感兴趣的主题，并找到加强现有技能或学习新技能的途径。课外/联合课程设置还为学生提供了一个轻松、愉快的机会，让他们在真实的环境中练习工程技能，从而提高自信心--这一特点对工程学中代表性较低的群体的学生尤为重要--以及更有技术能力的工程劳动力。此外，尽管以工程为中心的课外/联合课程经验的某些特征可能难以在课堂环境中重现，但其他特征可能会为促进课堂内学习的交替教学实践提供启发。本项目回答了两个基本研究问题：(1)以工程为中心的课外/联合课程参与对学生的学术和专业发展有什么具体影响；(2)课外/联合活动的哪些具体特征对学生的学业和专业发展最有影响？本研究采用两阶段设计，第一阶段实施静态概念清单，工程专业技能评估，以及自我效能调查，以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。在第二阶段，第一阶段的参与者被招募进行访谈，以找出对第一阶段的研究结果的可能解释。这项工作所使用的方法将为其他非工程学科的学者对其特定学科的课外/合作活动进行评估，以确定是否存在类似的模式奠定基础。这项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学为重点的课外/课外参与相关的因素，例如，确定课外/课外经验如何独特地影响来自代表性不足群体的工程学学生。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.