Research Initiation: A Mixed Methods Approach to Examine and Foster Academic Resilience in Undergraduate Engineering Students

帮助工科学生提高他们的韧性技能，可以更好地使他们在大学取得成功，并更有效地应对未来的挑战。韧性是在逆境中很好地适应的能力。这是一项宝贵的技能，因为它可以帮助员工成功地克服困难和克服挫折。但在工程学等具有技术挑战性的学科中，很少有人致力于正式培养这种技能。这项研究将考察韧性在提高学生在具有挑战性的工程课程中的表现方面所起的作用。参与研究的学生将完成复原力调查，并根据他们的回答收到复原力概况。在详细描述学生的具体韧性技能(例如，他们的毅力、乐观和自我控制的程度)时，这份档案可能会帮助学生发挥他们的长处，并制定解决他们弱点的策略。随后的课堂讨论将讨论韧性和学业成功之间的联系。据信，学生将受益于更好地理解韧性，更多地意识到它在他们表现中的作用，以及加强他们的韧性技能。据我们所知，这将是工程教育中关于弹性的第一次研究。这一发现可以极大地提高学生和教师对弹性在掌握工程学和其他涉及科学、技术和数学的学科中技术材料的重要性的理解。本研究将结合定量和定性的方法来探索核心工程课程中学生的弹性与成就之间的关系。研究设计的理论依据是复原力模型，该模型包括风险因素、保护性因素和积极适应。量化数据收集将基于两项复原力调查的使用，这两项调查以前已在教育背景下得到验证，即学术复原力量表和Connor-Davidson复原力量表。这项研究的基础是致力于将研究与实践相结合，并进行直接使学生受益的研究。这项研究将直接影响参与研究的342名工科本科生，为这些学生提供个人复原力得分；促进课堂上讨论复原力各维度与学习成绩之间的总体相关性；并提供反思适应和适应不良应对机制的机会。研究设计包括关注被确定为最具弹性和最不具弹性的学生，以及针对在工程学中代表性不足和/或面临失败或退出工程学学习风险的群体的韧性-成就关系。研究成果将通过会议和期刊出版物以及专注于专业技能在学习STEM技术内容中所起作用的地方和国家研讨会分享。该奖项反映了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。

Helping engineering students improve their resilience skills could better enable them to succeed in college and deal more effectively with future challenges. Resilience is the ability to adapt well in the face of adversity. It is a valuable skill because it helps employees successfully navigate difficulties and overcome setbacks. But in technically challenging disciplines such as engineering, little effort has been devoted to formally cultivating such skills. This study will examine the role that resilience can play in improving students' performance in challenging engineering courses. Students participating in the study will complete resilience surveys and receive a resilience profile based on their responses. In detailing students' specific resilience skills (e.g., the extent of their perseverance, optimism, and self-control), this profile may help students play to their strengths and develop strategies for working around their weaknesses. Subsequent class discussions will consider the connections between resilience and academic success. It is believed that students will benefit from better understanding resilience, from becoming more aware of its role in their performance, and from strengthening their resilience skills. To our knowledge, this will be the first study of resilience in engineering education. The findings could dramatically improve student and faculty understanding of the importance of resilience in mastering technical material in engineering and other disciplines involving science, technology, and mathematics.This study will mix quantitative and qualitative methods to explore resilience-achievement relationships among students in core engineering courses. The research design is theoretically informed by a model of resilience which includes risk factors, protective factors, and positive adaptation. The quantitative data collection will be based on the use of two resilience surveys that have been previously validated in educational contexts, namely the Academic Resilience Scale and the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale. This study is underpinned by a commitment to integrate research and practice, and to conduct research that directly benefits students. The study will directly impact 342 undergraduate engineering students who participate in the study by providing these students with access to their individual resilience scores; facilitating in-class discussions of aggregate correlations between dimensions of resilience and academic performance; and providing opportunities for reflection on adaptive and maladaptive coping mechanisms. The research design includes a focus on students identified as the most and least resilient, as well as resilience-achievement relationships for groups that are underrepresented in engineering and/or at-risk of failing or withdrawing from their engineering studies. Research findings will be shared through conference and journal publications, and via local and national workshops that focus on the role that professional skills can play in learning STEM technical content.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.