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应变能力，可以让他们更好地在大学里取得成功，更有效地应对未来的挑战。适应力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应对困难，克服挫折。但在工程等技术上具有挑战性的学科中，很少有人致力于正式培养这些技能。本研究将探讨弹性在提高学生在具有挑战性的工程课程中的表现方面所扮演的角色。参与研究的学生将完成弹性调查，并根据他们的回答获得弹性概况。在详细介绍学生的具体弹性技能（例如，他们的毅力，乐观和自我控制的程度）时，这一概况可以帮助学生发挥自己的优势，并制定克服弱点的策略。随后的课堂讨论将考虑弹性和学业成功之间的联系。据信，学生将受益于更好地理解弹性，从越来越意识到它在他们的表现中的作用，并从加强他们的弹性技能。据我们所知，这将是第一次对工程教育中的弹性进行研究。这些发现可以极大地提高学生和教师对弹性在掌握工程和其他涉及科学、技术和数学学科的技术材料中的重要性的理解。本研究将采用定量与定性相结合的方法，探讨核心工程课程学生的韧性与成就之间的关系。研究设计的理论依据是弹性模型，包括风险因素、保护因素和积极适应。定量数据收集将基于先前在教育背景下验证的两项弹性调查，即学术弹性量表和康纳-戴维森弹性量表。这项研究的基础是承诺将研究与实践相结合，并开展直接使学生受益的研究。本研究将直接影响342名参与研究的工科本科生，为这些学生提供他们的个人心理弹性分数；促进课堂讨论心理弹性维度与学习成绩之间的总体相关性；并提供了反思适应和不适应应对机制的机会。研究设计包括关注最具弹性和最不具弹性的学生，以及在工程和/或有失败或退出工程学习风险的群体中代表性不足的群体的弹性-成就关系。研究成果将通过会议和期刊出版物以及地方和国家研讨会进行分享，这些研讨会的重点是专业技能在学习STEM技术内容方面可以发挥的作用。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。

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.