VTechWorks Repository :: Browsing by Author "Borrego, Maura Jenkins"

Browsing by Author "Borrego, Maura Jenkins"

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Assessment of First-Year Engineering Students' Spatial Visualization Skills
Steinhauer, Heidi Marie (Virginia Tech, 2012-03-30)
This research was undertaken to investigate the assessment of the spatial visualization skills of first-year engineering students. This research was conducted through three approaches: (1) a review of cogent research framed by a spatial visualization matrix, (2) the development and validation of an Engineering Graphics Concept Inventory, and (3) an investigation into the relationship into the correlations between 3D modeling skills and performance on the Purdue Spatial Visualization Test: Rotations (PSVT:R) and the Mental Cutting Test (MCT). The literature reviewed spans the field of published research from the early 1930's to the present. This review expands and provides a new direction on published research as it is viewed through the lenses of the four common pedagogical approaches to teaching spatial visualization: the standard approach, the remedial approach, computer-aided design, and the theory-informed approach. A spatial visualization matrix of criteria was developed to evaluate each of the methods. The four principle criteria included: learning outcomes, active and engaged learning, stage of knowledge, and explanatory power. Key findings from the literature review indicate the standard method is not the most effective method to teaching spatial visualization while the theory-informed method as evaluated by the matrix is the most effective pedagogical approach of the four methods evaluated. The next phase of this research focused on the two-year development, validation, and reliability of an Engineering Graphics Concept Inventory given to over 1300 participants from three universities. A Delphi method was used to determine the key concepts identified by the expert panel to be included in the inventory. A student panel of 20 participants participated in the pilot study of "think aloud" protocols to refine inventory test items and to generate the appropriate distractors. Multiple pilot studies coupled with a detailed psychometric analysis provided the feedback and direction needed for the adjustment of test items. The reported Cronbach's α for the final instrument is .73, which is within the acceptable range. The inventory is ready to be implemented and the predictability of the instrument, in reference to students' spatial visualization skills, to be researched. The final chapter of this research was a correlational study of the relationship between first-year engineering student's 3D modeling frameworks and their performance on the PSVT:R and the MCT. 3D modeling presence in graphical communications has steadily increased over the last 15 years; however there has been little research on the correlations between the standard visualization tests and 3D modeling. 220 first-year engineering students from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University participated in the study in the fall of 2011. The main findings from this research indicate there is no significant correlational relationship between the PSVT:R and a student's 3D modeling ability, but there is one for the MCT. The significant correlational factors reported for the MCT and modeling aptitude for the three assignments are: r = .32 (p < 0.05), .36 (p< 0.01), and .47 (p< 0.01). These findings may be used by undergraduate educators and course administrators to more effectively organize engineering graphics education to yield students with deeper, more meaningful knowledge about engineering graphics and its inherent connection throughout the engineering curriculum. Together these three studies represent a sequential exploratory mixed methods approach that intertwines qualitative interviews and observations to frame the quantitative instrument and data collection. Results of this study can be used to guide the assessment of incoming freshmen engineering students, and the modification and development of engineering graphics courses.
Biopolitics and Belief: Governance in the Church of Christ, Scientist, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Newswander, Lynita Kay (Virginia Tech, 2009-04-01)
This dissertation offers an analysis of two American religions–the Church of Christ, Scientist (CS), and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS)–and the ways that their particular/peculiar ideologies regarding the body govern the everyday realities of their respective memberships. Biopower is the political power used to control bodies and bodily actions, such as the care of oneself, and the details of personal family life. Belief can act as an especially powerful agent of biopolitical power as it inspires a lived faithfulness through its various theologies. What is more, the effects of biopolitical belief are often complicated by the mixed interests of Church and State, leaving the territory of the individual body a disputed claim. To better understand these disputes, this project utilizes a Foucaultian interpretation of the CS and LDS churches to better understand the roots of the biopolitical conflicts they confront. Specifically, the histories and contemporary practices of these religious organizations are analyzed through a genealogical method, using Foucaultian interpretations of the biopolitical, pastoral, and psychiatric powers they use to effectively govern the minds, bodies, and spirits of their people. A historical background of the CS and LDS churches traces the emergence of the biopolitical practices of each group by evaluating their groundedness in their current social-political milieus, and by making connections between their respective religious beliefs, practices, and government and the broader Jacksonian American political culture into which they were born. Additionally, this particular form of analysis poses important questions for the study of religion and politics today. Although most of the examples used in this study are historical, both the LDS and CS churches continue to hold on to many if not all of the theologies and doctrines which historically brought them into conflict with the US government. What has changed is not the belief itself, but the embodiment of it, and also the state and federal government reaction to it. Therefore, the theological histories and founding stories of these religions remain relevant to their contemporary status as extra-statal biopolitical forces within the US today.
A Case Study of Pedagogy in an Interdisciplinary Green Engineering Course
Richter, David M. (Virginia Tech, 2008-04-28)
This study investigates pedagogical challenges posed by interdisciplinary courses using a mixed methods case study. Current engineering education literature describes many multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary efforts—curriculum, programs, courses, and projects—but lacks concrete pedagogical strategies appropriate to such efforts. In interdisciplinary courses, students represent a range of majors and often different academic levels. Consequently, they bring different disciplinary prior knowledge as well as different levels of understanding. This lack of common prior knowledge due to horizontal (disciplinary) and vertical (levels) integration creates unique challenges for faculty associated with both course content and instruction method. To address these challenges, this study adopted a mixed methods approach to collect quantitative and qualitative data in an interdisciplinary Green Engineering Life Cycle Analysis course. Data included surveys, observations, and interviews. The surveys addressed students' motivation for enrollment, prior knowledge of Green Engineering, perception of the course, reflections on course content, satisfaction, and content gains. Observations of classroom and team meeting behaviors, along with interviews of students and faculty provide complementary qualitative data. Quantitative analysis of the content knowledge data demonstrates significant gains for eight of ten concepts. Qualitative analysis shows that students also gained awareness of different perspectives from other disciplines. Qualitative analysis also identified key challenges for faculty in interdisciplinary settings: 1) structural issues related with organizing students from different disciplines with conflicting schedules and 2) disciplinary egocentrism of students through their education and training from in-major courses. The data also suggests teaching practices that have the potential to create new interdisciplinary pedagogies.
Definitions of Interdisciplinary Research: Toward Graduate-Level Interdisciplinary Learning Outcomes
Borrego, Maura Jenkins; Newswander, L. K. (Johns Hopkins Univ Press, 2010)
Combining the interdisciplinary studies (primarily humanities) literature with the content analysis of 129 successful National Science Foundation proposals written predominantly by science and engineering faculty members, the authors identify five categories of learning outcomes for interdisciplinary graduate education: disciplinary grounding, integration, teamwork, communication, and critical awareness. They identify important parallels between humanities-based descriptions of interdisciplinary integration and implicit graduate learning outcomes hinted at by engineering and science faculty who more frequently work in teams. Applying the lens of interdisciplinary studies (humanities) to science and engineering provides important depth and focus to engineering and science interdisciplinary learning outcomes, particularly in detailing integration processes.
Disciplinarily Hetero- and Homogeneous Design Team Convergence: Communication Patterns and Perceptions of Teamwork
Adams, Shawnette K. (Virginia Tech, 2007-07-30)
In today's worlds of industry and academia, teamwork is becoming more and more prevalent and is becoming more and more desirable when addressing certain tasks. Intensified and growing competition in the global marketplace is forcing businesses to produce better products, thereby, requiring the input and expertise of various people with diverse backgrounds. Organizations have adopted a team approach in response to the technological advances that contribute to the complexity of many tasks in the workplace making it difficult for employees to work independently (Mathieu, Heffner, Goodwin, Salas, Cannon-Bowers, 2000). The purpose of this research is to investigate the communication patterns of disciplinarily heterogeneous student design teams at the university level. A quasi-experimental design, specifically a non-equivalent control group design was used for this study. This study has two research questions: 1) what is the process that leads to convergence of a team-based mental model among disciplinarily heterogeneous team members? and 2) what are the factors associated with convergence that lead to effective disciplinarily heterogeneous teams? The results will allow the formation of guidelines that will assist such students in improving their effectiveness by allowing the convergence of the team members onto the same mental model(s). It must be noted that data collection for the experimental teams continued after the tragic events that occurred at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007. The results for this study were variable. Through examination of the fluctuation of the reliability scores across the three times it was administered, as well as the Pearson-Product Moment comparison, the Group Behavior Inventory is not the best instrument to use in an academic setting for student teams. The disciplinarily homogeneous teams disagreed more and the disciplinarily heterogeneous teams agreed more in terms of body language, while disciplinarily heterogeneous disagreed more through verbal utterances of sighs and pauses; however none of these differences were statistically significant. Certain agreement and disagreement indicators were significantly negatively correlated. Therefore, the corroboration of the Group Behavior Inventory constructs can only be applied to a specific disagreement indicator.
Gender Bias in Engineering: Does More Contact with Female Engineers Reduce Bias?
Hoeffel, Elizabeth Marie (Virginia Tech, 2007-04-06)
Status Characteristics Theory and Contact Theory are tested to measure gender bias in engineering students, and to determine if contact with female engineers helps reduce gender bias. To assess this, two versions of a resume, one with a female's name and one with a male's name, were given to senior mechanical engineering students (n=225) to establish if they would rate the male applicant better than the female applicant. Respondents were asked how qualified they thought the respondent was, how much they would want the respondent on their team, and whether or not they would hire the applicant. Respondents were also questioned about contact with female engineering faculty, having female engineers in the family, and having female engineering co-workers. Results showed that all of the effects that were expected to occur were not significant, except one. The interaction between having a female engineer in the family and the applicant sex of the resume significantly impacted males' desire to have the applicant on their senior design team. Therefore, overall there is very little support for Status Characteristics Theory and Contact Theory. Only one result supports both Status Characteristics Theory and Contact Theory — having a female engineer in the family seems to reduce gender bias toward team members among males.
How Static is the Statics Classroom? An investigation into how innovations, specifically Research-Based Instructional Strategies, are adopted into the Statics classroom
Cutler, Stephanie Leigh (Virginia Tech, 2013-05-03)
The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate how educational research, specifically Research-Based Instructional Strategies (RBIS), is adopted by education practice, specifically within the engineering Statics classroom. Using a systematic approach, changes in classroom teaching practices were investigated from the instructors\' perspective. Both researchers and practitioners are included in the process, combining efforts to improve student learning, which is a critical goal for engineering education. The study is divided into 3 stages and each is discussed in an individual manuscript. Manuscript 1 provides an assessment of current teaching practices; Manuscript 2 explores RBIS use by Statics instructors and perceived barriers of adoption; and Manuscript 3 evaluates adoption using Fidelity of Implementation.

A common set of concurrent mixed methods was used for each stage of this study. A quantitative national survey of Statics instructors (n =166) and 18 qualitative interviews were conducted to examine activities used in the Statics classroom and familiarity with nine RBIS.

The results of this study show that lecturing is the most common activity throughout Statics classrooms, but is not the only activity. Other common activities included working examples and students working on problems individually and in groups. As discussed by the interview participants, each of Rogers\' characteristics influenced adoption for different reasons. For example, Complexity (level of difficulty with implementation of an RBIS) was most commonly identified as a barrier. His study also evaluated the Fidelity of Implementation for each RBIS and found it to be higher for RBIS that were less complex (in terms of the number of critical components). Many of the critical components (i.e. activities required for implementation, as described in the literature) were found to statistically distinguish RBIS users and non-users.

This dissertation offers four contributions: (1) an understanding of current ractices in Statics; (2) the instructor perspective of the barriers to using RBIS in the classroom; (3) the use of Fidelity of Implementation as a unique evaluation of RBIS adoption, which can be used by future engineering education researchers; and (4) a systematic approach of exploring change in the classroom, which offers new perspectives and approaches to accelerate the adoption process.
Illuminating systematic differences in no job offers for STEM doctoral recipients
Kinoshita, Timothy J.; Knight, David B.; Borrego, Maura Jenkins; Bortz, Whitney E. Wall (2020-04-29)
This study examines differences across demographic subgroups in the phenomenon of recent doctoral recipients seeking work but having no job offers for employment. Gender and race/ethnicity have been identified as two characteristics with considerable issues of representation in a number of science and engineering fields, particularly at the doctoral level. Using the NSF Survey of Earned Doctorates dataset, which includes over 298,000 respondents in the biological sciences, engineering, and physical sciences since 1977, we use logistic regression modelling to examine the likelihood of doctoral recipients having no offers at the time of graduation as a function of race, gender, family and funding variables. We find that across the fields of biology, engineering, and physical sciences, women and underrepresented minorities have a higher prevalence of having no job offers, but this relationship has notable interaction effects for family variables and doctoral program funding mechanism. Importantly, marital status accounts for differences in job offers between genders that deserves further exploration.
Organization and Retention in Research Groups in Graduate Engineering Departments
Crede, Erin Dawne (Virginia Tech, 2011-09-05)
The purpose of this research project was to better understand the experiences of graduate students in internationally diverse research groups, and how these research groups and international diversity contributes to a student's intent to complete his or her graduate degree. This exploratory mixed methods research was conducted in three phases: (1) an ethnographic study of selected research groups in two engineering graduate departments, (2) development of a survey for students in graduate engineering students, and (3) administering the survey to graduate engineering students in research groups to verify the findings. In order to address the project aims, three smaller studies were initiated that address individual elements of graduate education, including: learning in research groups and international diversity, and retention in graduate engineering programs. The focus of the first study was to understand how and under what conditions research groups foster successful learning and professional development for graduate engineering students, and how these findings can be used to inform management of engineering research groups to optimize student learning, productivity, and intent to complete the degree. Key findings from the ethnographic analysis indicate that group size directly influences the mechanisms of student learning, as well as several elements common across research groups from different universities and academic departments, including: power distance and communication, access to resources, and role of the advisor. During the (second) integration phase of this mixed methods study, the nine months of ethnographically guided observations and interviews were used to develop a survey examining graduate engineering student retention. Findings from the ethnographic fieldwork yielded several themes, including: the role of international diversity, research group organization and climate, student self efficacy, and individual and group learning experiences. Final retention themes from the ethnographic analysis are presented along with a discussion of how these data were configured into instrument questions. A discussion of the final instrument is presented, including validity and reliability analysis, and how the final questions were integrated into themes to test hypotheses for future studies. This chapter also presents implications for mixed methods researchers interested in using qualitative methods to create new instruments. In the third and final stage of the research study, the survey developed in the second phase of the research study was administered to four universities across the United States. Data analysis focused on better understanding the differences in retention constructs by student nationality. Results from more than 600 engineering PhD students from 6 international regions enrolled in U.S. engineering graduate programs were examined to characterize demographic differences in participant responses for intention to complete the degree. Six constructs were found to be significant in predicting students' responses regarding their intention to complete their degree, including: expectations, climate, organization, project ownership, perception of value, and individual preferences. Taken together these constructs were able to explain 28 percent of the variation in student responses. Additionally, all six constructs showed significant differences with respect to a respondent's country or region or origin. These results are discussed in light of the implications for faculty members advising similarly diverse groups of students. In combination, these three studies represent a sequential exploratory mixed methods approach in which ethnographically guided observations and interviews were integrated into a quantitative instrument. Results of this study can be used to inform the organization and management of internationally diverse research groups to foster student development and ultimately increase retention.
Practices of Brokering: Between STS and Feminist Engineering Education Research
Beddoes, Kacey (Virginia Tech, 2011-11-10)
This project documents my efforts to publish STS- and gender theory-informed articles in engineering education journals. It analyzes the processes of writing and revising three articles submitted to three different journals, aiming to shed light on the field of engineering education, gender research therein, and contribute to feminist science studies literature on the challenges and opportunities of interdisciplinary work across women's studies and STEM fields. Building upon Wenger's concept of brokering, I analyze how I brought previously underexplored STS and feminist theory literature into engineering education journals. In producing this dissertation, I aim to illuminate some of the efforts and challenges of bringing STS and Women's Studies (WS) topics into engineering education journals – thus producing an account of brokering practices and an example of scalable scholarship. The first chapter introduces engineering education research (EER) as a field of inquiry, situates my project with respect to current feminist science studies, summarizes the framework of brokering that informs my analyses, and describes my methodology. The second chapter describes my initial attempts at brokering by identifying and bridging differences and the preliminary brokering practices that emerged through writing and revising the first of my three articles. It discusses an article published in Journal of Engineering Education that analyzes the uses of feminist theory in EER and argues that further engagement with a broader range of feminist theories could benefit EER. The third chapter describes how some of these practices were reinforced, but also supplemented, while writing and revising the second article. It discusses an article published in International Journal of Engineering Education that analyzes problematizations of underrepresentation in EER and argues that further reflection upon and formal discussion of how underrepresentation is framed could benefit EER. The forth chapter describes how the established brokering practices guided writing the third article, making the process easier as I had become more comfortable with the requirements and challenges of brokering. It discusses an article submitted to European Journal of Engineering Education that analyzes feminist research methodologies in the context of EER, using data from interviews with feminist engineering educators. The fifth chapter concludes by summarizing the brokering practices and discussing their respective challenges, discussing the implications of this project for STS and WS, and, finally, by discussing other implications for peer review engineering education. The Appendix contains aims, scope, author guidelines, and review criteria for the three journals. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 each begin with a narrative recounting of the practices of brokering that went into producing and revising each article. The narratives describe processes of writing and preparing to submit the articles, reviews received, and subsequent revision processes. The published or submitted articles appear after the brokering narrative.
Preparing and Progressing: A Narrative Study of Optics and Photonics Graduate Students' Identity-Trajectory
Thomas, Lauren Desiree (Virginia Tech, 2013-11-05)
Identity development, through time, of graduate students is a topic understudied in most disciplines, and completely unstudied in optics and photonics. As a physical science and engineering discipline with blossoming scientific value, optics and photonics is growing a small number of graduate programs. With this growth, a more in depth and detailed understanding of the exposure, recruitment, development and enrollment experiences of those students are needed. Identity-trajectory offers a promising theoretical framework to understand academic and professional development of professionals through time and has been shown to be reliable in many social science and humanities disciplines. The narrative methodology is emerging in use and acceptance within the engineering education research community. The provoking combination of a growing discipline, a theoretical framework with little prior application in physical science and engineering, with a creative methodology were intentionally selected for this study. A semi-structured interview protocol was developed to prompt participants through a reflective description of their academic and professional development. Twenty-five current and recent graduate students from nine degree granting optics and photonics graduate programs participated in the study. In addition to participating in the interview, averaging about forty-five minutes, participants submitted a curriculum vita in advance of the interview. Both the interview and the vita provide the primary data used in this study. Interview transcripts were coded with the theory of identity-trajectory's three strands: intellectual development, institutional influence and network. The findings are grouped into pre-graduate training and graduate development experiences. Considering pre-graduate training, research experience as an undergraduate facilitates future decisions and access to graduate education. For graduate students, the structural experience within the graduate program, specifically related to research, facilitate progress through the program and beyond. The graduate program experience generally prepares students for academic research, but not the broader career pathways that students seek and eventually follow. All of these findings center on the laboratory, as the conduit for developing undergraduates to graduate students, and graduate students to professionals; the experience within the laboratory frames identity-trajectory throughout undergraduate and graduate experiences. These findings were used to provide strategies for departments, faculty and students in these fields, but are applicable in similarly structured disciplines.
Race, Rigor, and Selectivity in US Engineering: The History of an Occupational Color Line
Borrego, Maura Jenkins (Johns Hopkins Univ Press, 2011)
Seeing Beyond Service - Redefining the Problem of Water and Sanitation Service Delivery in Resource-Limited Settings to Enable Effective Solutions
Strock, Christopher Moore (Virginia Tech, 2010-07-22)
The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of water and sanitation service delivery in resource-limited settings using two different social theories (modernization and world system). Understanding that barriers to effectiveness are rooted in global structures that tend to present at local levels helps redefine the problem leading to comprehensive policies and practices. The guiding research questions included an identification of an effectiveness gap in services delivered in developed countries compared to those in developing countries. This study included a survey of water and sanitation professionals gauging their opinions on trends within the sector. Survey respondents demonstrated that the sector tends to align with localized (i.e. modernist) approaches. This may explain the perpetuation of differential patterns in water and sanitation access and associated diseases and deaths in developing countries. Through a case study of Partners In Health (PIH), a medical-oriented non-governmental organization used as a proxy for water and sanitation organizations, this work illustrated why personal and organizational philosophies and perspectives influence how we organize and act. It concludes with a discussion of engineering decision making through the lenses offered by modernization and world system theories; presents an organizational structure that allows organizations to overcome theoretical and geographic boundaries; and offers a set of recommendations learned from PIH and those the sector does well. This research shows how water and sanitation organizations, practices, and policies that consider local and global forces are more effective at delivering services in developing countries than those focusing solely on local forces.
STEM doctoral students’ skill development: does funding mechanism matter?
Grote, Dustin; Patrick, Anita; Lyles, Chelsea; Knight, David B.; Borrego, Maura Jenkins; Alsharif, Abdulrahman (2021-08-17)
Abstract Background A substantial monetary investment supports STEM doctoral students in the United States (U.S.) through a variety of funding mechanisms (e.g., fellowships, research, and teaching assistantships). However, we have limited knowledge of how students’ funding influences their development of career-relevant skills during graduate school. Using survey data from STEM doctoral students (n = 719) across 35 highly ranked U.S. institutions, we use exploratory factor analysis and nested multivariate regression modeling to understand how students’ primary funding influences development of: (a) research skills; (b) teamwork and project management skills; (c) peer training and mentoring skills, and (d) communication skills. Results We find significant differences in students’ self-reported development for all four career-related skills based on their primary funding type. Students with research assistantships reported higher research and teamwork and project management skills than those with teaching assistantships. Yet, students with teaching assistantships reported significantly higher development of peer training and mentoring than students funded via all other types. Students funded via external fellowships reported lower skill development than students funded primarily by research assistantships across all four career-relevant skills. Conclusions Doctoral students' development of career-relevant skills are not uniform across primary funding types. Particularly, the perceived benefits of external fellowship funding (i.e., prestige, autonomy, increased pay) may come at the cost of fewer opportunities to develop skills important for career success. STEM graduate education scholars, practitioners, and policymakers should consider and ameliorate the varied impacts that funding mechanisms can have on graduate students’ development of career-relevant skills.
U.S. postdoctoral careers in life sciences, physical sciences and engineering: Government, industry, and academia
Denton, Maya; Borrego, Maura Jenkins; Knight, David B. (2022-01)
Discussions about science and engineering postdoctoral researchers focus almost exclusively on academic postdocs and their chances of eventually securing tenure-track faculty positions. Further, biological sciences dominate policy research and published advice for new PhDs regarding postdoctoral employment. Our analysis uses the Survey of Earned Doctorates and Survey of Doctorate Recipients to understand employment implications for physical sciences and engineering (PSE) and life sciences (LS) graduates who took postdoctoral positions in government, industry, and academic sectors. We examine postdoc duration, reasons for staying in a postdoc, movement between sectors, and salary implications. There is considerable movement between employment sectors within the first six years post-PhD. Additionally, postdocs in PSE are shorter, better paid, and more often in nonacademic sectors than postdocs in LS. These results can help science and engineering faculty discuss a broader range of career pathways with doctoral students and help new PhDs make better informed early career decisions.
Usability of Pictorial Assembly Instructions for Young Children
Martin, Cortney V. (Virginia Tech, 2007-02-07)
This human factors research demonstrated the importance of instruction design on assembly performance and self-efficacy in young children. The mixed-method usability study evaluated the effect of gender, age, toy, and experience on assembly performance, frequency and duration of instruction looks, subjective evaluations, and usability problems. A total of twenty-four boys and girls, six- and nine-year-olds, assembled K'NEX, LEGO, BIONICLE, and Lincoln Log toys using the accompanying pictorial assembly instructions. Other research objectives included recommending key usability measures for instruction designers, developing a model of assembly self-efficacy, and evaluating traditional usability methods for use with children. Not surprisingly, quantitative results revealed that the older children assembled the toys more quickly and accurately with fewer usability problems. Six-year-old girls had the highest rate of mistakes. The nine-year-olds required fewer instruction looks of shorter duration than the six-year-olds. With few exceptions, toy comparisons were similar across subjective and objective measures. Thirty-two instruction design usability problems were described and illustrated and resulted in twenty-seven design recommendations. For example, more than half of the children omitted components added to the main assembly in the presence of a subassembly construction suggesting that the subassembly should be in a separate frame. Principal components analysis of all quantitative measures revealed four key components for the usability testing of pictorial assembly instructions: performance, satisfaction, difficulty, and previous experience. A qualitative analysis of the think-aloud data and observations, using Grounded Theory, produced a model of assembly self-efficacy from child users’ psychosocial and cognitive perspectives that affirmed the importance of user-centered instruction design. Girls exhibited lower self-efficacy and a greater tendency toward internal attributions, which was exacerbated by assembly of a boy-oriented toy. Six-year-old children were more affected by excess extraneous cognitive load and inaccurate information, such as color mismatches between the instructions and object. Adaptations of traditional usability methods and instruments were effective with children. They included video training for thinking aloud, visual-analog rating scales, and pictorial ranking instruments. A small head-mounted camera provided an economic means for gathering gross instruction encoding times and for better understanding the user's perspective.
Variation in the Awarding and Effectiveness of STEM Graduate Student Funding across Teaching and Research Assistantships, Fellowships, and Traineeships: Student Survey Summary Data
Knight, David B.; Borrego, Maura Jenkins (2021)
Student survey data for this report were collected as one part of a project aimed at investigating STEM doctoral students’ funding mechanisms from the perspectives of doctoral programs as well as doctoral students. To be included in the sampling frame, institutions had to have doctoral students enrolled in at least three of the project’s eight target STEM disciplines (i.e., biological sciences, chemical engineering, chemistry, civil engineering, electrical engineering, math/statistics, mechanical engineering, and physics) and either: 1) be among the 25 institutions in the United States that graduate the highest number of Ph.D. earners in one of those disciplines annually, or 2) be ranked in the top 25 graduate programs by US News and World Report in one those disciplines. For the 35 institutions meeting those criteria, we sent survey distribution requests to university administrators from colleges of engineering and colleges of science (or arts and science in some circumstances), typically an associate dean for graduate studies within each college, and asked those individuals to send survey requests to doctoral students enrolled in STEM programs. If we did not receive a response from the college representative, we reached out to departmental leaders in those STEM disciplines. The survey was administered during the Fall 2019 semester.
Virtual Socialization in Engineering Education: Identifying the Impacts of a Socializer-Based Intervention on Second-Year Engineering Students
Sevilla, Kevin Matthew (Virginia Tech, 2014-09-30)
With student attrition in engineering most frequently occurring during the 2nd year due to perceptions of poor teaching and advising, curricular overload, and a lack of a sense of belonging, this study sought to address these concerns in a novel way through videos. This study was inspired by the success of existing on-campus mentoring services that enlist more advanced students to act as academic and cultural mentors, and sought to connect with students who may feel unwelcome or socially inhibited from attending similar services. On-campus support services have historically experienced service-level concerns with regards to overhead costs that have resulted in targeting specific audiences over restricted durations of time. Through these measures, both lack of awareness and social inhibition to attendance has resulted in some students not receiving the support that they need in order to succeed in engineering. To address this concern, this study developed and tested a video-based intervention on 2nd year students identified as 'at-risk-for-attrition' through GPA and self-reported measures of belonging in engineering. The intervention involved 18 junior- and senior-level engineering students participating in videotaped interviews that were segmented by topic into 305 videos and posted to a private Vimeo channel. These videos acted as static virtual mentors for the study participants. To evaluate the impact of these videos, an exploratory case study was conducted with 13 'at-risk-for-attrition' participants that included 7 women and 6 men. The participants completed a pre-intervention interview concerning their current status in engineering, a reflection of their first year, and perceptions of on-campus support services. Participants were then asked to watch one hour of videos, keep a notebook of their experience, and record the date and time that each video was watched. Once completed, participants participated in a post-intervention interview concerning their video choices, reactions, and outcomes of the experience, and any affordances that they saw in the intervention tool. Drawing on expectancy-value theory, the results of this study yielded a model for how participants made their video selections, how they reacted to virtual mentors and interpreted their video content, and how these reactions led to collective identity beliefs and intentions to act on the advice provided. Additionally, participants highlighted some of the affordances of offering mentoring through static videos. Of particular importance was the perception of shared identity between participants and mentors as a precursor to impacting future intentions to act on their advice. The findings led to recommendations regarding the redefinition of desired mentor traits for at-risk-for-attrition students was discovered, and also, the potential for offering virtual mentoring as a proxy or precursor to attending on-campus services without the program- and student-level concerns hindering current offerings.

Browsing by Author "Borrego, Maura Jenkins"

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