Understanding Diverse Pathways: Disciplinary Trajectories of Engineering Students: Year 3- NSF REE Grant 1129383

Engineering as a whole continues to suffer from a low participation of women of all races andBlack, Hispanic, and Native American men. To diversify pathways for students to and throughengineering and to improve student success, we must first know how to measure success andprovide baseline data describing the current situation for all students. Our previous work hasshown that persistence or success varies by race and gender, and how we measure persistencematters in understanding this variation. Once women matriculate in engineering, they graduate insix-years at the same or better rates than their male counterparts of all races. This finding,however, shows considerable variation by engineering subdiscipline. Aggregating allengineering disciplines tends to produce a skewed view of the field given the large numbers ofstudents in Electrical and Mechanical engineering. Disaggregation by race and gender isimperative because not all populations respond the same way to similar conditions. Building onearlier findings that trajectories of engineering persistence are non-linear, gendered, andracialized as a whole and for electrical and computer engineering, we are extending theseanalyses to other engineering disciplines. Using an existing dataset that includes wholepopulation data from eleven institutions throughout the U.S. spanning more than 20 years, wehave an unprecedented opportunity to conduct analyses of student persistence disaggregated byrace, gender, and engineering discipline. This gives us a unique opportunity to paint a morecomplete picture of the current situation for students in engineering and to identify successes andareas of concern. Our research question is How do the trajectories of engineering students indifferent engineering disciplines vary by race and gender? Trajectories are measured atmatriculation, four years later, and six-year graduation for matriculants to the disciplines as wellas all students in the major, including first-time-in-college (FTIC) and transfer students. Theimpact of first-year engineering (FYE) programs is also considered. We focus on the mostpopular disciplines of engineering: Chemical, Civil, Electrical, Mechanical, and Industrial. Inaddition, we have considered Aerospace Engineering given its similarity in curriculum toMechanical and Computer Engineering given its similar curriculum to Electrical. We have begunto work on comparisons of the five most popular engineering disciplines

Interdisciplinary project-based learning: technology for improving student cognition

The article studies a way of enhancing student cognition by using interdisciplinary project-based learning (IPBL) in a higher education institution. IPBL is a creative pedagogic approach allowing students of one area of specialisation to develop projects for students with different academic profiles. The application of this approach in the Ural State University of Economics resulted in a computer-assisted learning system (CALS) designed by IT students. The CALS was used in an analytical chemistry course with students majoring in Commodities Management and Expertise (‘expert’ students). To test how effective the technology was, the control and experimental groups were formed. In the control group, learning was done with traditional methods. In the experimental group, it was reinforced by IPBL. A statistical analysis of the results, with an application of Pearson χ 2 test, showed that the cognitive levels in both IT and ‘expert’ experimental groups improved as compared with the control groups. The findings demonstrated that IPBL can significantly enhance learning. It can be implemented in any institution of higher or secondary education that promotes learning, including the CALS development and its use for solving problems in different subject areas

Designing training activities for a new PhD program in engineering education

This research paper for the practice of work-in-progress presents the training activities designed for students of a new PhD program in Engineering Education. These activities are based on the study of the training courses of five Engineering Education PhD programs, and on the literature concerning PhD training challenges. A set of competencies to be acquired is first defined; then the training activities are designed by means of a SPOOC (Self-Paced Open Online Course) in order to guide the acquisition of these competencies. The SPOOC is currently under design, taking an initial cohort of 9 students as an experimental group.Peer ReviewedObjectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::4 - Educació de QualitatPostprint (author's final draft

Leveraging Final Degree Projects for Open Source Software Contributions

(1) Background: final year students of computer science engineering degrees must carry out a final degree project (FDP) in order to graduate. Students’ contributions to improve open source software (OSS) through FDPs can offer multiple benefits and challenges, both for the students, the instructors and for the project itself. This work reports on a practical experience developed by four students contributing to mature OSS projects during their FDPs, detailing how they addressed the multiple challenges involved, both from the students and teachers perspective. (2) Methods: we followed the work of four students contributing to two established OSS projects for two academic years and analyzed their work on GitHub and their responses to a survey. (3) Results: we obtained a set of specific recommendations for future practitioners and detailed a list of benefits achieved by steering FDP towards OSS contributions, for students, teachers and the OSS projects. (4) Conclusions: we find out that FDPs oriented towards enhancing OSS projects can introduce students into real-world, practical examples of software engineering principles, give them a boost in their confidence about their technical and communication skills and help them build a portfolio of contributions to daily used worldwide open source applications

Systematic review on which analytics and learning methodologies are applied in primary and secondary education in the learning of robotics sensors

Robotics technology has become increasingly common both for businesses and for private citizens. Primary and secondary schools, as a mirror of societal evolution, have increasingly integrated science, technology, engineering and math concepts into their curricula. Our research questions are: “In teaching robotics to primary and secondary school students, which pedagogical-methodological interventions result in better understanding and knowledge in the use of sensors in educational robotics?”, and “In teaching robotics to primary and secondary school students, which analytical methods related to Learning Analytics processes are proposed to analyze and reflect on students’ behavior in their learning of concepts and skills of sensors in educational robotics?”. To answer these questions, we have carried out a systematic review of the literature in the Web of Science and Scopus databases regarding robotics sensors in primary and secondary education, and Learning Analytics processes. We applied PRISMA methodology and reviewed a total of 24 articles. The results show a consensus about the use of the Learning by Doing and Project-Based Learning methodologies, including their different variations, as the most common methodology for achieving optimal engagement, motivation and performance in students’ learning. Finally, future lines of research are identified from this study.This research was co-funded by the support of the Secretaria d’Universitats i Recerca of the Department of Business and Knowledge of the Generalitat de Catalunya with the help of 2017 SGR 93

Collecting sensor-generated data for assessing teamwork and individual contributions in computing student teams

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, the authors describe a series of experiments that have been conducted in a dedicated smart-spaces laboratory, aiming to combine the use of several sensors in collecting student data. Second, the paper shares key findings from the use of sensor-generated data as an instrument for assessing individual contributions as well as team performance. The early sections of the paper describe the setting of a smart-space laboratory and how it was used for two scenarios; on one hand student teams were monitored during a coordination meeting involving decision making, while on the other hand students were observed during a team presentation. The discussion explains how sensors were used to monitor emotions (using facial image processing), stress (using galvanic skin response) and participation (based on the use of Kinnect). The key contribution is in the form of the experiment setting that can be replicated with students from different educational backgrounds but also in scenarios involving practitioners from different disciplines. The authors discuss the drivers for organizing this type of experiment and explain the reasoning behind the use of certain sensors and the value of collecting specific data sets. The later part of the paper describes how the analysis of collected data has produced visualizations of patterns that can be used in education for assessing student contribution, emotions and stress levels. Similar approaches could be used for project management where student teams are replaced by software engineering teams in agile development scenarios (e.g. scrum stand-up meetings)

Managing the Inner Workings of Collective Intelligence Approaches for Wicked Problems – An Assessment Model and Evaluation

Ill-defined and complex problems that affect multiple stakeholders with potentially conflicting perspectives are often referred to as wicked problems. The utilization of collective intelligence (CI) via web-based platforms is a promising approach for addressing such wicked problems. The management of these information systems would benefit from evidence-based decision support regarding facilitation and improvement efforts. However, to date, there is no suitable model to guide such efforts. Existing approaches address specific applications or cover certain assessment areas but do not provide a holistic perspective. Meanwhile, research offers substantial insights into best practices for addressing wicked problems and running CI applications. This paper develops an assessment model comprising five central success dimensions for information systems that address wicked problems. Their subdimensions and associated measurement metrics allow for evidence-driven facilitation and improvement of CI applications for wicked problems. Apart from the model’s capability to improve future runs and processes, it also offers the potential to provide immediate insights for facilitation efforts during runtime. The model was validated with a platform dealing with the assessment of risks presented by global climate change. This evaluation generated strong evidence for the model’s applicability and usefulness

Supporting Co-Regulation and Motivation in Learning Programming in Online Classrooms

Self-regulation of learning in programming has been extensively investigated, emphasising an individual's metacognitive and motivational regulation components. However, learning often happens in socially situated contexts, and little emphasis has been paid to studying social modes of regulation in programming. We designed Thyone, a collaborative Jupyter Notebook extension to support learners' programming regulation in an online classroom context with the overall aim to foster their intrinsic motivation toward programming. Thyone's salient features - Flowchart, Discuss and Share Cell - incorporate affordances for learners to co-regulate their learning and drive their motivation. In an exploratory quasi-experimental study, we investigated learners' engagement with Thyone's features and assessed its influence on their learning motivation in an introductory programming course. We found that Thyone facilitated the co-regulation of programming learning and that the users' engagement with Thyone appeared to positively influence components of their motivation: interest, autonomy, and relatedness. Our results inform the design of technological interventions to support co-regulation in programming learning

Understanding collaboration in Global Software Engineering (GSE) teams with the use of sensors: introducing a multi-sensor setting for observing social and human aspects in project management

This paper discusses on-going research in the ways Global Software Engineering (GSE) teams collaborate for a range of software development tasks. The paper focuses on providing the means for observing and understanding GSE team member collaboration including team coordination and member communication. Initially the paper provides the background on social and human issues relating to GSE collaboration. Next the paper describes a pilot study involving a simulation of virtual GSE teams working together with the use of asynchronous and synchronous communication over a virtual learning environment. The study considered the use of multiple data collection techniques recordings of SCRUM meetings, design and implementation tasks. Next, the paper discusses the use of a multi-sensor for observing human and social aspects of project management in GSE teams. The scope of the study is to provide the means for gathering data regarding GSE team coordination for project managers including member emotions, participation pattern in team discussions and potentially stress levels