VTechWorks Repository :: Browsing by Author "Matusovich, Holly M."

Browsing by Author "Matusovich, Holly M."

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Career Goals and Actions of Early Career Engineering Graduates
Winters, Katherine Elaine (Virginia Tech, 2012-03-19)
Much of engineering education research focuses on improving undergraduate engineering education. However, in order to help new engineers prepare for and successfully transition to the workplace, and therefore improve retention within the engineering practice, it is vitally important to understand the experiences of these early career engineers. The purpose of this study is to identify and explain the career goals and actions of early career engineering graduates. To accomplish this goal, this research addressed the question "What factors influence early career engineering graduates" career goals near the end of their undergraduate engineering studies, career-related actions taken in the subsequent four years, and their future career plans? Data were predominantly qualitative. Thirty participants were interviewed and surveyed near the end of their undergraduate studies, then completed pre-questionnaires and an interview as early career engineering graduates. Participants were graduates from three different universities and were diverse with respect to sex, race, and undergraduate major. Data analysis was framed by Social Cognitive Career Theory, as developed by Lent, Brown, and Hackett, and followed case study methods. Results show that early career engineering graduates had diverse goals and interests, but similar influencing factors. They generally wanted to find appealing work and acted towards that goal. Relationships with faculty and expectations of positive outcomes heavily influenced participants' decisions to pursue graduate degrees, and family commitments geographically constrained career choices while also increasing the desire for stability. The economic downturn impacted job availability for most participants, but many participants were able to broaden their career searches to find interesting and fulfilling work. Participants that exhibited an ability to adapt to changing conditions reported the greater levels of satisfaction with their careers. The findings of this research provide important information to engineering educators and employers as they mentor the next generation of engineers, and early career engineering graduates themselves as they seek to achieve their goals.
Catalyzing Organizational Change for Equity in Graduate Education: A Case Study of Adopting Collective Impact in a College of Engineering
Lee, Walter C.; Holloman, Teirra K.; Knight, David B.; Huggins, Natali; Matusovich, Holly M.; Brisbane, Julia (MDPI, 2024-03-10)
Graduate education in engineering is an extremely challenging, complex entity that is difficult to change. The purpose of this exploratory research paper was to investigate the applicability of the Collective Impact framework, which has been used within community organizing contexts, to organize the change efforts of a center focused on advancing equitable graduate education within engineering. We sought to understand how the conditions of Collective Impact (i.e., common agenda, backbone organization, mutually reinforcing activities, shared measurement system, and continuous communication) could facilitate the organization of equity-focused change efforts across a college of engineering at a single institution. To achieve this, we took an action research approach. We found the Collective Impact framework to be a useful tool for organizing cross-sectional partnerships to facilitate equity-focused change in graduate education; we also found the five conditions of Collective Impact to be applicable to the higher education context, with some intentional considerations and modifications. Through coordinated efforts, the Collective Impact framework can support the goal of reorienting existing decentralized structures, resource flows, and decision processes to foster bottom-up and top-down change processes to advance equitable support for graduate students.
Choice in the Advisor Selection Processes of Doctoral Engineering Programs
Artiles, Mayra S. (Virginia Tech, 2019-09-18)
Research on doctoral student attrition has shown that one of the main reasons for which students do not persist in the Ph.D. is because of a poor relationship with their doctoral advisor. The importance of the advising relationship is especially true in science, math, and engineering degrees because of the science model of advising as the student is the advisor's employee, close collaborator, and apprentice. While much attention has been given to understanding the dynamics of the advising relationship, little attention has been given to on how these relationships commence or the context in which they begin. This study ultimately contributes to understanding the context of the inception of advisor- advisee relationships and how it ultimately relates to both faculty and doctoral student satisfaction. The following overarching research questions guide this dissertation: What are the processes for doctoral students to find advisors in engineering, science, and math? How is this process experienced by faculty and students? To address these questions, I conducted three studies. Through these studies, this dissertation: 1) Identified and described the types of advisor-advisee selection processes that exist in engineering, science, and math and examined trends and patterns across disciplines; 2) compared how two Chemical Engineering programs practice the advisor selection process and examined how faculty and graduate program directors negotiate agency in the process and 3) explored how students experience satisfaction of their basic needs in the advisor selection process of one Chemical Engineering program and examined which student attributes influence this satisfaction of needs. The results showed that there are multiple ways through which a student can find an advisor in science, math, and engineering doctoral program, but these vary widely by both discipline and field of study. The results also showed both students and faculty value the ability to select whom they will work with. However, both groups may also need support in making this decision regarding with whom they will work. Overall, the results of this dissertation highlight the importance of developing practices that balance an individual's need for support and autonomy to improve their satisfaction.
Content and Choices: An Exploration of Career Goals in Undergraduate Engineering Students
Brown, Philip Reid (Virginia Tech, 2016-04-29)
The careers that students pursue after graduating from engineering programs are a central component to engineering education. However, we lack perspective on how students, the main stakeholder of the engineering education system, describe the goals they have for their post-graduation careers and make choices related to those goals. As a first step in closing this gap, I explored the different types of career goals that students have, investigated how students connect different types of goals to choices they make in engineering programs, and developed a survey instrument for future research on career goals. My sequential mixed methods study consisted of three phases. In the first phase, I analyzed interview data via the constant comparative method to explore the different types of career goals that students described. In second phase, I used the types of goals identified in phase one to analyze how students described connecting their career goals to choices they made as undergraduates in longitudinal interview data. In the final phase, I adapted the ideas from phase one and phase two into a quantitative survey instrument, which I piloted for validity and reliability. My study produced four main outcomes. The first outcome was identifying two distinct types of career goals held by students including goals about the jobs students want post-graduation and goals relative to job attributes rather than specific jobs. The second outcome was that students connected both types of career goals to choices they make in the present academic context. The third outcome was that career goals and their connection to choices students make could be measured in a valid, reliable survey instrument. Finally, my results suggest that there may be differences in the ways that male and female students describe their career goals and the ways that career goals are connected to choices. These outcomes have broad implications for students, educators and researchers in the engineering education system.
Disaggregating the Monolith: A Case Study on Varied Engineering Career Orientations and Strategies of Black Women in Tech
Hall, Janice Leshay (Virginia Tech, 2021-06-08)
Diversifying the engineering workforce has been a national imperative for several decades. The increased participation of Black students in engineering is commonly identified as a crucial area for improvement. Yet, the rates of engineering degree completion are slowing for Black women in particular. In 2015, less than one percent of all U.S. engineering bachelor's degrees were awarded to Black women. To support broadening participation efforts, I use an anti-deficit approach to examine the career orientations and mobility patterns of Black women working in computing and engineering roles in the tech industry. By characterizing the different career motivations, strategies, and points of transition in the careers of a diverse sample of Black women, I sought to disaggregate the Black women's engineering and computing career experiences—particularly as it relates to how and why they move into, around and out of roles in the tech industry. Using a qualitative multi-case study, I conducted a multi-level career mobility analysis on secondary data and user-generated social media artifacts to extend theory on career orientations and talent management to help normalize "non-traditional" career trajectories. The study findings are useful to inform the next generation of Black women interested in tech on the different ways to approach and achieve subjective career success and satisfaction in engineering and computing fields. In this dissertation work, I discuss how the varied insights of Black women's career experiences in tech can be leveraged for practitioners and industry leaders to broaden the participation (e.g., to attract, retain and better support) of students and employees by identifying their career orientations and then using that to inform career preparation and development that aligns with different engineering and computing career outlooks.
Doctoral Advisor Selection in Chemical Engineering: Evaluating Two Programs through Principal-Agent Theory
Artiles, Mayra S.; Matusovich, Holly M. (VT Publishing, 2022-02-02)
Background: Little is known about how doctoral advising relationships form, but understanding the inception of these relationships can be helpful to address doctoral attrition. Chemical Engineering programs highly structure this advisor-advisee selection when compared to other engineering programs. Purpose: This study examines how two programs in Chemical Engineering practice the advisor-advisee selection process from the perspective of their faculty. In particular, our study uses principal-agent theory to address the following research question: How do two Chemical Engineering doctoral programs manage the advisor-advisee matching process? Methods: Through multi-case study methods, we examine faculty perceptions in two large doctoral programs in the U.S. Our coding was informed using Principal-Agent Theory as a framework to help characterize faculty perceptions and develop insight into their interactions with students and the graduate program director. Results: Our findings showed that faculty perceived control could strongly impact whether they adhere to departmental processes and adapt to the existing practices or if they circumvent the process. Our findings also showed the role of transparency and how such impacted faculty engagement. Conclusion: We recommend departments consider how they practice shared governance in their departments regarding the advisor-advisee matching process. We also recommend they continuously engage in conversations about processes and practices to surface implicit and explicit practices and perpetuate good community in their academic units. We also present recommendations for using economics frameworks in studying academic processes.
Doctoral advisor selection processes in science, math, and engineering programs in the United States
Artiles, Mayra S.; Knight, David B.; Matusovich, Holly M. (2023-01-24)
Although advising relationships are key for doctoral student success, little research has addressed how they form. Understanding the formation of advising relationships can help contextualize their later development and ultimately support a student’s decision to persist in the doctorate. To understand relationship formation, the purpose of this qualitative study is to identify and describe the types of advisor–advisee selection processes that exist in engineering, science, and math doctoral programs and examine patterns across disciplines within those fields. We conducted interviews with doctoral program directors and engaged in document analysis of graduate student handbooks from 55 doctoral programs in the aforementioned fields in high research institutions across the United States. Using principal–agent theory as a theoretical lens, our findings showed that engineering programs tend to decentralize the advisor selection process by funding students across different funding sources upon enrollment. Contrariwise, science and math programs tended to fund all students in a cohort from a common funding source, which allowed students to have more time to gather information, meet, and select an advisor. These findings also show important nuances when comparing graduate education in these programs that directly impact the doctoral student experience and reiterates the necessity to study these fields separately.
The Experiences of African-American Males on Multiracial Student Teams in Engineering
Cross, Kelly J. (Virginia Tech, 2015-06-15)
Team projects in engineering are critical sites for professional and personal development as students interact with peers and faculty on projects designed to simulate engineering work. These projects allow students to try on professional roles and establish a sense of identity within their field, which in turn influences their retention through college and into engineering careers. However, team projects can present challenges specific to students from underrepresented populations. While research on women's team experiences is strong, few researchers have studied African-Americans. To fill this gap, the current study explores the experiences of African-American males on multiracial student teams and the impact of those teams on these students' identities. This qualitative study employed a phenomenological approach, using a three-interview sequence with eight African-American male engineering students as they worked on team projects at a predominantly white institution (PWI). The interviews gathered background information about each participant, explored the team functionality during the project, and enabled participants to reflect on the team experience. Two theoretical frameworks were considered during the study design: 1) intergroup contact theory provided a lens to explore interracial interactions, and 2) multiple identities provided a lens to analyze the impact of team dynamics on students' intersecting identities. The findings provide a rich understanding of the team experiences of African-American male students that can enhance project-based teaching within engineering to more explicitly attend to team dynamics, including interracial interactions for students of color. Both positive and negative impacts on African-American males in engineering emerged from the intergroup contact within the team environment. Specifically, the results indicate that these participants enjoyed their multiracial student teaming experiences, supported by informal social interactions among team members and generally positive professional interactions. However, the study participants also entered their team experiences fully aware of the negative stereotypes about African-Americans in engineering and proactively worked to dispel those stereotypes.
An Exploration of the Enrollment and Outcomes of the Virginia Governor's STEM Academies
Kinoshita, Timothy Jon (Virginia Tech, 2020-09-03)
Although originally conceived as an educational intervention for at-risk students, modern career academies have expanded their scope to programs designed to promote critical thinking, problem solving, and analytical skills to be successful in an advanced career path. Through the integration of career and technical education courses and a rigorous, college preparatory academic curriculum, career academies serve as a key piece of a larger strategy for developing a well- prepared STEM workforce. This study focuses on the Virginia Governor's STEM Academies, a state-wide initiative containing programs designed to expand options for the general student population to acquire STEM literacy and other critical skills, knowledge and credentials that will prepare them for high-demand, high-wage, and high-skill careers. Currently, 22 Academies exist serving students across 36 Virginia School Divisions. Using educational administrative data housed within the Virginia Longitudinal Data System, I examined the Virginia Governor's STEM Academies regarding characteristics of student participation and the relationship between Academy participation and high school and postsecondary outcomes. Using multi-level regression modeling, I found that male students, Asian and Hispanic students, and non-economically disadvantage students have a higher rate of Academy participation. After matching students with propensity score matching on demographic and early academic characteristics, I find that Academy participants are more likely to take Algebra II at an earlier grade, enroll in more Career and Technical Education and dual enrollment courses, and declare a STEM major after enrolling at a postsecondary institution. This research provides a valuable new contribution to the study of career academies after such educational programs have undergone a paradigm shift to preparing students for high-demand, high-wage, and high-skill careers. By incorporating propensity score matching and multi-level regression model, I employ a statistically rigorous approach that can serve as important benchmarking of the enrollment and academic outcomes of the Virginia Governor's STEM Academies.
Exploring Cyber Ranges in Cybersecurity Education
Beauchamp, Cheryl Lynn (Virginia Tech, 2022-04-01)
According to a report from McAfee, the global cost of cybercrime for 2020 was over one trillion dollars (Smith, Z. et al., 2020). Cybersecurity breaches and attacks have not only cost businesses and organizations millions of dollars but have also threatened national security and critical infrastructure. Examples include the Ransomware attack in May of 2021 on the largest fuel pipeline in the United States and the February 2021 remote access system breach of a Florida water treatment facility which raised sodium hydroxide to a lethal level. Improving cybersecurity requires a skilled workforce with relevant knowledge and skills. Academic degree programs, boot camps, and various certification programs provide education and training to assist this need. Cyber ranges are a more recent development to provide hands-on skill training. These ranges, often virtual, provide a safe and accessible environment to improve practical skills and experience through hands-on application. They provide a training environment to identify threats, apply countermeasures, and secure data from risks separately from the organization's actual network. More and more academic programs utilize cyber ranges due to the perceived benefit of integrating them into their cybersecurity-related programs. Academic cyber ranges offer virtualized environments that support cybersecurity educators' needs to provide students with a safe, separated, and engaging environment. The purpose of my research has two components: 1) to understand who the educators are using academic-facing cyber ranges and how they are using them to support their cybersecurity education efforts, and 2) to understand how cybersecurity educators and students are motivated by using them. Specifically, my research is comprised of three manuscripts: (1) a mixed-method exploratory study of who are the educators using cyber ranges for cybersecurity education and how they are using them to create significant cybersecurity learning experiences, (2) a mixed-method study exploring the motivation of educators using a cyber range for cybersecurity education, and (3) a mixed-method study exploring student motivation participating in cybersecurity CTF competitions. The three manuscripts contribute to understanding cyber ranges in cybersecurity education. The results from my research provided insight from the users of these cyber ranges, cybersecurity educators and students. Results from my first manuscript suggested that high school cybersecurity educators are the primary users. These educators have less formal cybersecurity education and experience compared to cybersecurity educators in higher education. The data also showed that cybersecurity educators primarily used cyber ranges for teaching and learning to meet learning goals and objectives. Results from my second manuscript suggested that educators were motivated mainly by the importance of using a cyber range for cybersecurity education and for the interest-enjoyment their students experience from cyber range usage. Educators found using the cyber range made their class more engaging and relevant to their students.These educators were also confident they could use a cyber range and learn how to use it. However, those without prior experience in cybersecurity or previous experience using a cyber range shared they needed instructor-facing resources, professional development opportunities, and time to learn. Results from my third manuscript suggested that students were motivated by the importance of participating in a cybersecurity CTF competition. Many reported that participating was useful for developing professional skills and readiness. Although CTF competitions were considered difficult and stressful, students did not consider the difficulty pejorative. Many shared that challenging CTFs contributed towards the enjoyment of participating, making them a rewarding and worthwhile experience. However, students also shared that academic and team support contributed towards their confidence in competing. In contrast, those who did not report confidence, stated they lacked a team strategy or support from their academic institution. Additionally, they did not know what to expect to prepare before the competition event. Overall, the results of this dissertation highlight the importance of prior preparation for educators and student CTF participants. For educators, this prior preparation includes curriculum supporting resources such as content mapping to learning objectives and professional development opportunities that do not assume any prior knowledge or experience. For students, prior preparation includes understanding what to expect and recommendations for academic and team support.
Exploring Instructors' Classroom Test Beliefs and Behaviors in Fundamental Engineering Courses: A Qualitative Multi-Case Study
Chew, Kai Jun (Virginia Tech, 2022-08-23)
Classroom tests are a common and default form of assessments in concept-heavy, fundamental engineering courses. Tests have benefits to learning, such as the testing effect that helps with the retrieval of knowledge, but there are also disadvantages, like discouraging deep learning approaches and decreasing motivation to learn, that warrant examining and questioning why tests are common, which engineering education literature lacks. Furthermore, the advancement of assessment research has led to alternative assessments that can diversify types of assessments and promote intentionality in test usage in these courses, supporting the need for scholarship on understanding test usage. My research began to address this by studying fundamental engineering course instructors' test beliefs and behaviors because engineering instructors have shown to have autonomy in making course decisions and barriers to adopting scholarship-based assessment practices among these engineering instructors persist. This dissertation study, grounded in the Situated Expectancy Value Theory (SEVT), explored, uncovered, and articulated seven fundamental engineering course instructors' test beliefs and behaviors from mechanical engineering and engineering science departments in a public, land-grant, Research 1 institution. Leveraging the case study research methodology from a pragmatic perspective, my multi-case study, with each participant being defined as a case, answered an overarching research question and five sub-research questions that yielded findings on five test aspects: test usage, design, administration, cheating, and fairness. Eight collected data sources in the form of qualitative interviews, course, department, and institution documents became the database to answer the questions. Analyses of these data involved coding and content analysis, and subsequent thematic analysis. The outcome of these analyses shaped the individual case profiles for cross-case analysis to understand belief and behavior patterns at a higher level. My research has found three groups of test usage beliefs. These are enthusiastic test users, default test users, and skeptical test users. All participants featured tests heavily in their courses and justified with learning outcomes and some non-course-content factors like large class sizes for grading conveniences. However, those in default and skeptical test user groups also acknowledged some non-course-content factors, like inertia and peer pressure, that influenced their test usage beliefs and behaviors. All participants acknowledged some disadvantages with tests, but those who are skeptical with test usage presented stronger beliefs about test disadvantages, arguing for the need to move away from tests when necessary. Some participants also presented conflicting beliefs and behaviors regarding their test usage. My study has also found all participants using problem-solving questions, emphasizing the need to curb cheating especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, preferring in-person test administration, and defining test fairness with reasonable completion time and adequate content coverage. These findings contribute to addressing identified research gaps in the literature and have implications for future research on tests with assessment philosophies, classroom practices on diversifying assessments and intentional test usage, and future research on possible assessment roles in addressing systemic inequity in engineering.
Illuminating inequality in access: Variation in enrollment in undergraduate engineering programs across Virginia's high schools
Knight, David B.; Grohs, Jacob R.; Bradburn, Isabel S.; Kinoshita, Timothy J.; Vaziri, Stacey; Matusovich, Holly M.; Carrico, Cheryl (2020-10-06)
Background Determining the root causes of persistent underrepresentation of different subpopulations in engineering remains a continued challenge. Because place-based variation of resource distribution is not random and because school and community contexts influence high school outcomes, considering variation across those contexts should be paramount in broadening participation research. Purpose/Hypothesis This study takes a macroscopic systems view of engineering enrollments to understand variation across one state's public high school rates of engineering matriculation. Design/Method This study uses a dataset from the Virginia Longitudinal Data System that includes all students who completed high school from a Virginia public school from 2007 to 2014 (N= 685,429). We explore geographic variation in four-year undergraduate engineering enrollment as a function of gender, race/ethnicity, and economically disadvantaged status. Additionally, we investigate the relationship between characteristics of the high school and community contexts and undergraduate engineering enrollment across Virginia's high schools using regression analysis. Results Our findings illuminate inequality in enrollment in engineering programs at four-year institutions across high schools by gender, race, and socioeconomic status (and the intersections among those demographics). Different high schools have different engineering enrollment rates among students who attend four-year postsecondary institutions. We show strong associations between high schools' engineering enrollment rates and four-year institution enrollment rates as well as moderate associations for high schools' community socioeconomic status. Conclusions Strong systemic forces need to be overcome to broaden participation in engineering. We demonstrate the insights that state longitudinal data systems can illuminate in engineering education research.
Implementing Problem-based Learning in Introductory Engineering Courses: A Qualitative Investigation of Facilitation Strategies
Hunter, Deirdre-Annaliese Nicole (Virginia Tech, 2015-09-14)
Increasing pressure to transform teaching and learning of engineering is supported by mounting research evidence for the value of learner-centered pedagogies. Despite this evidence, engineering faculty are often unsuccessful in applying such teaching approaches often because they lack the necessary knowledge to customize these pedagogies for their unique contexts. My dissertation study investigated the challenges with facilitation practices in introductory PBL engineering courses and developed a pragmatic research-based model that provides insights aimed at improving PBL facilitation practices using the Innovation Cycle of Educational Practice and Research (ICEPR) as a lens. The ICEPR is useful for investigating connections between educational practice and research for scholarly and systematic educational innovations. I conducted a three-phase sequential study to address critical gaps in the ICEPR regarding both research on and practice of PBL facilitation in engineering. I focused on identifying challenges in practice, developing a model, and disseminating the model through a typology using multiple qualitative data collection and analysis methods. In Phase 1, I studied a new PBL implementation and identified a challenge with facilitator training specifically with regard to a lack of a pragmatic model of facilitation strategies in engineering. In Phase 2, I investigated the facilitation practices of five facilitators in an established PBL engineering course. This resulted in the Model of PBL Facilitation Strategies for Introductory Engineering Courses (PBL-FIEC), where I specifically operationalized the instructional methods constructs from Collins' Cognitive Apprenticeship Framework to describe the variety of ways instructors facilitate student learning in PBL introductory engineering courses. The PBL-FIEC includes six methods and 27 strategies ways for instructors to facilitate students' learning through providing and prompting demonstrations of cognitive and metacognitive processes that emphasize content and process knowledge and different ways of knowing (knowledge, understanding, and reasoning). In Phase 3, I developed a Typology of Facilitation Strategies using PBL-FIEC and observations of instructors to demonstrate how they use and combine facilitation methods. Ultimately, my dissertation research shows how the ICEPR can be used to understand that innovation in educational practice relies on the interaction between researchers and practitioners, while generating a model directly useful for both stakeholders.
The Influences of First-Year Engineering Matriculation Structures on Electrical and Computer Engineering Students' Self-Efficacy
Lewis, Racheida Sharde (Virginia Tech, 2019-11-22)
While first-year engineering (FYE) programs have grown dramatically over the last 30 years, they take a variety of different structures. However, few if any, researchers and FYE program developers has considered how program structure, and specifically matriculation, impacts retention – an issue that continues to be of concern as we seek to grown the national engineering workforce. Low retention rates combined with lack of diversity becomes even more acute when considering the field of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) which ranks as one of the least diverse engineering disciplines. One factor that has been shown to support retention is self-efficacy or individuals' beliefs in their ability to succeed. Therefore, to help address the retention issues in ECE, this dissertation explores the programmatic influence of first-year engineering matriculation structures on self-efficacy development in electrical and computer engineering students. In particular, it compares declared engineering (DE) programs, which admit students to a specific engineering field, to general engineering (GE) programs, in which students are admitted to engineering but do not select a specific engineering field until after their first year. Using qualitative and quantitative methodologies, this dissertation presents three manuscripts: 1) a quantitative secondary analysis comparing competency beliefs in a GE program and a quasi- DE first-year engineering program for ECE students; 2) a qualitative secondary analysis of self-efficacy development in a DE first-year program; and 3) a qualitative analysis exploring similarities and differences in self-efficacy development in EE students at two universities, one with a DE program and one with a GE program. The exploratory studies resulted in findings that demonstrate strong similarities in self-efficacy development in students from the DE and GE programs. Those differences that did emerge are largely attributed to how self-efficacy is discussed by students: 1) self-efficacy is developed differently between the two programs because the tasks associated with each program are different; 2) GE students discuss self-efficacy more broadly regarding engineering in general, focusing on domains like professional skills; 3) DE students discuss self-efficacy development more narrowly, specifically related to being an electrical or computer engineer. Additionally, the findings from study 2 suggest that pedagogical structures may be more important regarding self-efficacy development than matriculation structures. These results broaden our understanding of how FYE programs impact self-efficacy development within the context of a specific major, but still lend themselves to further exploration regarding factors most related to persistence and the experiences of underrepresented minorities in engineering.
Instructional Change in Engineering Education: A Conceptual System Dynamics Model of Adoption of Research-Based Instructional Strategies in the Classroom
Cruz Bohorquez, Juan Manuel (Virginia Tech, 2019-09-09)
The overall goal of this study was to better understand how the academic system affects change in instructional practices, referred to as instructional change, in engineering education. To accomplish this goal, and acknowledging the complex nature of academia, I used a technique designed to understand complex systems called System Dynamics Modeling. With such technique, I created a conceptual System Dynamics Model (SDM) that illustrates how the factors in the academic system interact dynamically to drive or hinder faculty motivation to adopt Research-based Instructional Strategies (RBIS) in their courses. The creation of this model followed a process that combined research literature with data gathered from 17 professors at an Engineering Department in another country. The model was constructed through an iterative process of systematically reviewing the literature, gather empirical data and creating Causal Loop Diagrams (CLD). The CLD are representations of the different causal relationships between elements in a system which ultimately create what we called virtuous or vicious (reinforcing) cycles and balancing cycles. The whole idea was not to find the causes for professors' motivation to change but how the factors in the academic system reinforce or limit such motivation. With this model I offered a different answer to the calls for change in engineering education toward increasing the pedagogical quality of our learning environments. My biggest argument is that previous instructional change initiatives have yielded low to moderate success, because effective instructional change would require a perspective that accounts for the complex nature of academia. With this study I am providing a different understanding of instructional change by using a system perspective that shows the interactions of elements within a complex system that ultimately influences faculty to adopt RBIS in their courses.
The Intersecting Perspective: African American Female Experiences with Faculty Mentoring in Undergraduate Engineering
Smith, Courtney Shaleah (Virginia Tech, 2015-08-21)
The value of diversity in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields has long been a leading topic of discussion among campus administrators and government officials. However, the number of African American women in STEM, and the engineering field in particular, has seen little growth over the past twenty years. To change this trend, there must be enhanced efforts to provide an environment and resources to support the retention of these women, and mentoring can play a key role. To gain a better understanding of the mentoring needs of these women, this research investigates the mentoring experiences of 16 current senior African American female engineering students. What is clear is that African American women have a unique set of experiences based on the multiple sets of identity groups that they claim membership in. Intersectionality emphasizes the implications of the multiplication of these identities and how that multiplication impacts experiences. This research, addresses the intersection by exploring faculty mentoring relationships, with particular focus on the implications of having a matched (same race and gender) or an unmatched mentor. Current research is inconsistent on the benefits of each type. Using phenomenography, this investigation of the various aspects of mentoring relationships that are salient to 16 African American women in engineering uncovered seven categories of mentoring: Guide, Proactive Supporter, Reactive Listener, Nurturer, Just in Time, Caring, and Role Model. Variation across these mentoring categories were reflected in the mentoring aspects that participants perceived. This set of interpersonal (listen, invested, and shared experience) and professional (development, opportunity, advice, and example) aspects depicted a set of mentoring types that varied in comprehensiveness. Additionally, variation in the race and gender of each mentor across each category suggested some trends surrounding the mentor characteristics that most frequently provided certain aspects. However, all of the categories that emerged were perceived to be effective. It is desired that the results of this research will impact the ways in which faculty understand the needs of African American women in engineering.
Into the Workplace: Exploring the Learning Experiences of Newcomer Engineers during the School-to-Work Transition
Lutz, Benjamin David (Virginia Tech, 2017-06-28)
Entering a new environment is challenging for everyone, including engineers. Despite national efforts to improve graduates' competencies, managers and other critical industry stakeholders consistently describe new hires as underprepared for practice. Nonetheless, as engineers move into their new organizations, they learn to participate in and contribute to their communities of practice. This period is the school-to-work transition, and the goal of this research is to gain a deeper understanding of the salient learning events that characterize individuals' trajectories from engineering student to engineering practitioner. Using a multi-case approach, this study leverages weekly journals and semi-structured interviews to explore the experiences of recent engineering graduates as they enter the workplace and learn to engage in professional practice. Journal entries probed newcomers' perceptions of challenges, accomplishments, and significant learning events during the first 12 weeks of their jobs. Interviews expanded on journal findings and elaborated on participants' experiences. Analysis entailed the development and application of two complementary workplace learning frameworks from Jacobs and Park (2009) and Chao et al. (1994) that describe both the setting and content of salient learning experiences. Cross-case analysis enabled exploration across participants to examine trends and patterns within participants' experiential trajectories. Findings point to several contributions and implications. First, the codebooks developed in this study were contextualized and operationalized for engineering workplaces, and have been refined to enhance descriptive precision and clarity. Second, journals provided thick, rich descriptions of events in ways that hold promise for future exploratory studies as well as formative assessment. Finally, results indicated that newcomer engineers engage in a wide range of learning environments throughout the school-to-work transition and describe learning along myriad socialization dimensions. In particular, workplace learning takes place in unstructured environments through routine tasks and along both technical and sociocultural dimensions. Given this learning, both industry and academic professionals should consider these dimensions as they design experiences and assess learning across organizations. Newcomer learning is challenging, but if we can gain a better understanding of how and what happens during it, we can more effectively develop efforts to enhance the transition—and therefore, practice—for future generations of engineers.
Investigating Shared Leadership in Undergraduate Capstone Design Teams
Novoselich, Brian John (Virginia Tech, 2016-04-21)
Leadership is an area of increasing interest for the engineering profession. Strategic documents assert the need for engineers to take more prominent leadership roles to better inform complex policy decisions. Engineering leadership scholars assert, however that adequate models of how engineers lead do not exist and that traditional leadership models are contrary to the collaborative norms of engineering practice. To address this gap in engineering leadership literature, this dissertation develops a model of how engineering students lead in team-based design project environments, an example of the collaborative environment that is commonplace in engineering practice. This quantitative study used a combination of round-robin (360-degree) survey data and course grades to examine the Full Range of Leadership within mechanical engineering-centric capstone design teams. Using a combination of cluster analyses, social network analyses, and regression analyses in a three manuscript approach, this dissertation 1) validated a Mechanical Engineering capstone version of the Full Range of Leadership, 2) determined the degree of shared leadership within the teams and how to classify teams based on their degree of shared leadership, and 3) related shared leadership to both team effectiveness and team attributes. The study resulted in a shared leadership model for engineering design teams. The model represents leadership as a three-form, shared phenomenon within teams. The amount of leadership within the team relates positively to both the group process and satisfaction measures of team effectiveness, but not to task performance. This relationship is moderated by the distribution of leadership, indicating that a limited amount of shared leadership may be more effective. Selected team attributes are related to the degree of shared leadership within the teams. The results broaden our conceptualization of leadership beyond an individual phenomenon, making it a shared phenomenon that is an integral component of design teamwork as it relates to design team effectiveness.
Investigating Student Experiences of Engineering Culture During COVID-19: A Comparative Case Study
Deters, Jessica Rose (Virginia Tech, 2022-04-21)
The COVID-19 pandemic sparked rapid shifts to engineering education, causing changes to course formats and student experiences. The culture of undergraduate engineering programs undoubtably affected this transition online and affected how students interpreted their experiences. To date, research on engineering culture has explored the values, beliefs, and underlying ideologies of the culture. However, what we know about engineering culture was captured predominantly during periods of stability. Because COVID-19 provides an opportunity to either challenge or uphold aspects of engineering culture, it was imperative to capture the experiences of students undergoing an engineering education during this time. In order to understand what facets of engineering culture were salient in students' interpretations of their classroom experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, I conducted a multiple case study exploring mechanical engineering students' constructions of their experiences taking second and third year courses during the pandemic. I compared two mechanical engineering programs – one in the United States and one in South Africa – by conducting semi-structured interviews with 10 to 11 mechanical engineering undergraduate students at each site as well as 1 to 2 key informants. My analysis identified the following cultural features that emerged as salient from students' perspectives during the pandemic at both sites: intrinsic hardness, differential access to resources, and application and design. Additionally, my analysis identified the following cultural features that emerged as salient at only one site: seeking help, job market, and scientific way of thinking. The key difference between sites appeared with respect to differential access to resources. This study captures and reports critical data about students' constructions of their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. By investigating engineering culture during a time of stress, this research identifies the most salient features of engineering culture that remained constant through the pandemic as well as the features that changed due to the pandemic. Further, the global comparative aspect of this work highlights which features of engineering culture are universal and which are influenced by national context. Overall, this research aims to inform future educational responses to disasters as well as future change efforts in engineering.
Motivating Students in Game-Based Learning: The Importance of Instructor Teaching Practices
Morelock, John Ray (Virginia Tech, 2018-11-29)
Game-based learning--using games to achieve learning objectives--represents a promising and increasingly popular means of progressing engineering education's decades-long goal of bringing more evidence-based, active learning pedagogy into the classroom. However, if game-based learning is to proliferate as a pedagogy, research on game-based teaching is critical to provide practical recommendations for implementation, making the pedagogy more accessible to instructors. However, reviews of game-based literature reveal that little work exists in the game-based teaching space, and what work exists models high-level teaching practices and archetypal roles, which often fail to pinpoint specific practices game-based instructors can use to be successful. Moreover, reviews of game-based learning literature more generally suggest that research on how to improve student motivation in game-based learning settings--an important variable for learning and a longstanding argument for the value of games in education--are lacking in both quantity and theoretical soundness. To redress these gaps, I conducted a primarily qualitative, multiple-case study of seven non-digital game-based learning activities in engineering with the goal of furthering game-based teaching research and providing practical recommendations to instructors when using games in their classrooms. Using the MUSIC Model of Motivation as a motivation framework and the Observation Protocol for Adaptive Learning as a framework for categorizing teaching practices, I interviewed instructors about how they expected their teaching practices to affect student motivation, and I interviewed these instructors' students about how they actually perceived their instructors' actions as affecting their motivation. By comparing instructor and student responses, I derived recommendations for game-based learning practice that are likely to have a high impact on student motivation, and condensed these recommendations into a four-phase framework of game-based teaching to bolster student motivation. I supplemented my interview data with observation data to construct detailed summaries of each case I studied. The recommendations I offer in my framework can serve as useful resources for instructors seeking to foray into game-based teaching practices or improve their existing game activities, especially in engineering. Moreover, my study provides a model for investigating game-based teaching practices and motivation in game-based learning using established theoretical frameworks in natural classroom settings.

Browsing by Author "Matusovich, Holly M."

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