Collaborative Research: IRES Track I: US-Kenya Collaboration to Foster Underrepresented Students' Capacity in Community-Based Engineering Education Research

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Despite increased attention to and support for international opportunities for students, there are clear gaps in terms of who participates in such experiences and where they travel. Engineering students participate at lower rates, and racially and economically minoritized college/university students are the least likely to have the opportunity to participate. In addition, such international trips rarely take place in sub-Saharan Africa. To address this need, this IRES Track 1 project supports U.S. underrepresented students in conducting research in community-engaged engineering and the design of localized engineering education in Eldoret, Kenya. Students will work with research mentors in social work, engineering, and from the community itself, which will support their critical understanding of collaboration in international development and engineering problem-solving. We work across two collaborating institutions, Purdue University (PU) and San Francisco State University (SFSU), and we engage two departments at Moi University in Kenya, Education/Social Work and Engineering, and a community partner organization, Tumaini Innovation Center. This project will allow a broader population of U.S. engineering students to participate in an international research experience. This program gives first-generation, racially-minoritized, or low socioeconomic-status students the opportunity to carry out research abroad and experience the research process while also empowering them through mentorship and reflection. The student research projects will expand existing research in both Kenya and the U.S. in community-engaged engineering and localized engineering education.This project addresses an integrated set of research and practice aims, both through the research that student IRES participants will conduct and in the thoughtful evaluation of the program. First, the research conducted by the student researchers will contribute to rich scholarship in both community-engaged engineering and the development of localized engineering teaching and learning. There is a great need for additional research on how engineers can engage with communities in just and sustainable ways and for how engineering education can meet the unique needs of individual communities and student populations. The IRES student research projects have the potential to identify opportunities and approaches for developing engineering education that builds effectively on local knowledge. Second, the evaluation of this program can contribute to our understanding of student learning, intercultural growth, and experiences in international research. In particular, our project will focus on racially and economically marginalized and first-generation students, who are typically not represented in existing research on such programs. Through our engagement with multiple U.S. institutions (Purdue and SFSU) and our focused engagement with groups that support underrepresented students in engineering at both institutions, our IRES program will provide a mechanism for broad impacts on the fields of engineering education and engineering practice. Through our detailed student recruitment plan and our thematic focus, our IRES program will broaden access to impactful, community-centered engineering education research.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.