Research Initiation: Promoting first year engineering students agency to navigate their college experience through time management and metacognition skills

研究启动：促进一年级工程专业学生通过时间管理和元认知技能来驾驭他们的大学经历

• 批准号: 2306270
• 负责人: Jennifer Zirnheld
• 金额: $ 19.97万
• 依托单位: SUNY at Buffalo
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-09-01 至 2025-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2306270&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Research; Initiation; Promoting; first; year

The student body in higher education keeps changing, making it critical to pay attention to the plethora of challenges that new generations face to achieve their academic goals. To honor our commitment to support their success, we need to capitalize on their strengths as well as supporting the navigation of their challenges. In addition, the weed-out culture of engineering needs to be replaced with a culture that supports the success of a wider diversity of students and a larger conceptualization of what it means to be successful. As the proportion of students having to work to pay for college keeps increasing, it is important to equip students to make the best of their scarce time. The learning of time management skills would go a long way to support that goal. Similarly, the development of metacognitive skills, the ability to think about one's thinking, is essential for students to engage in cycles of success. This research project will investigate the potential link between time management and metacognition skills on student agency and subsequent success as measured by traditional metrics such as grades, GPA, and retention, as well as non-traditional approaches to success, like wellbeing. The significance of this project is that it aligns with the goal of diversifying pathways to and through engineering, as it is designed to support a wider range of diverse students’ success through their engineering training. In addition, will allow the Principal Investigator, a well-established researcher in a traditional engineering field, to formally engage in engineering education research through a mentored experience with experts in the field.This project will explore the research to practice translation towards supporting the success of an increasingly diverse body of students. The project is designed to explore to what extent gains in time management and metacognition skills of engineering students advance their holistic success in the field. Therefore, we frame this research within a redefinition of success that includes measures of traditional success (e.g. grades, retention) as well as non-traditional measures (e.g. wellbeing). Our design relies on a first intervention involving students’ imagining their possible successful selves in order to generate a plan to achieve it. An intervention to provide students with metacognitive skills and enhance their time management skills will follow. Repeated measures with established instruments will be taken through one semester to explore the longitudinal development of such skills. In addition, the retention of such knowledge and skills will be gauged during the second semester of their first year to explore the effectiveness of the interventions. Finally, students’ perceptions of the impact of such interventions and their persisting challenges to the development of the targeted skills will be explored qualitatively through interviews. The research design will allow for two iterations of the research cycle which will provide refined materials that can be disseminated to other institutions for their use to promote metacognitive and time management skills of engineering students.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.

高等教育的学生群体不断变化，因此必须关注新一代为实现其学术目标而面临的众多挑战。为了荣誉我们支持他们成功的承诺，我们需要利用他们的优势，并支持他们应对挑战。此外，工程学的淘汰文化需要被一种支持更广泛的学生成功的文化所取代，并对成功意味着什么进行更大的概念化。随着不得不工作来支付大学学费的学生比例不断增加，让学生充分利用他们宝贵的时间是很重要的。学习时间管理技能将大大有助于实现这一目标。同样，元认知技能的发展，即思考自己的思维的能力，对于学生参与成功的循环至关重要。该研究项目将调查时间管理和学生代理的元认知技能之间的潜在联系，并通过传统指标（如成绩，GPA和保留率）以及非传统的成功方法（如幸福）来衡量随后的成功。该项目的重要性在于，它符合多样化工程途径的目标，因为它旨在通过工程培训支持更广泛的多样化学生的成功。此外，该项目还将允许首席研究员，一位在传统工程领域享有盛誉的研究员，通过与该领域专家的指导经验，正式参与工程教育研究。该项目将探索研究，以实践翻译，支持日益多样化的学生群体的成功。该项目旨在探索在何种程度上获得时间管理和元认知技能的工程专业学生推进他们在该领域的整体成功。因此，我们在成功的重新定义，包括传统的成功措施（如成绩，保留）以及非传统的措施（如幸福）框架内的这项研究。我们的设计依赖于第一次干预，让学生想象他们可能成功的自我，以便制定实现目标的计划。接下来的干预将为学生提供元认知技能，并提高他们的时间管理技能。通过一个学期的反复测量，将采用既定的工具来探索这些技能的纵向发展。此外，将在第一年的下半年评估这些知识和技能的保留情况，以探讨干预措施的有效性。最后，学生对这种干预措施的影响的看法，以及他们对目标技能发展的持续挑战，将通过访谈进行定性探讨。该研究设计将允许两个迭代的研究周期，这将提供精炼的材料，可以传播给其他机构使用，以促进元认知和时间管理技能的工程专业学生。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准的支持。