Scholarly Works, Engineering Education

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Research articles, presentations, and other scholarship

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Understanding health systems thinking in medical education: qualitative interviews with expert clinicians
Norris, Matthew B.; Grohs, Jacob R.; Mutcheson, R. B.; Karp, Natalie; Katz, Andrew; Musick, David; Lane, Heidi; Parker, Sarah; Gonzalo, Jed (2026-01-31)
Background: Health systems science (HSS) education is an increasingly important component of undergraduate medical education. Despite curricular advances, the ways in which clinicians implement health systems science knowledge in everyday clinical practice, health systems thinking, remains understudied. A better understanding of how clinicians engage in health systems thinking to address everyday problems in clinical contexts is needed. Methods: We conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 expert clinicians experienced in undergraduate medical education, health systems science, and curriculum development to identify components of competent health systems thinking. Interview questions were informed by ecological systems theory and literature on learning professional competencies. Results: Through interviews with experts, we have come to define health systems thinking (HST) as “an approach to solving problems in healthcare systems that utilizes a deeper understanding of interconnections and behavior of the entire system. As a skill, it coordinates the application of clinical and HSS knowledge and skills toward solving a contextual problem in the healthcare environment.” Clinician comments support the idea that HST is a metacognitive process rather than a specific subset of knowledge domains or affective attributes. This process requires that clinicians understand and navigate pressures on patient care originating from surrounding meso- and macro-systems. Conclusions: Medical students require more explicit exposure to HSS knowledge being implemented in clinical environments, and varied examples highlighting how meso- and macro-system patterns can impact individual patient care. This metacognitive integration of HSS knowledge into everyday clinical practice is critical for preparing medical students to meet the requirements of the accreditation council for graduate medical education (ACGME) core competencies in residency programs. Health systems thinking requires a method of operational assessment to provide students feedback and highlight targeted interventions for further development.
Centering the Arts in the Age of AI: Advancing Education, Innovation, and Workforce Development through Creative Practices
Byrne, Daragh; Flanigan, Maryrose; Knapp, R. Benjamin; Knochel, Aaron; McNair, Lisa D. (2025-04-01)
a2ru is pleased to share the Executive Summary of findings from the 2024 symposium “Creativity, Empathy, and AI: A National Summit on the Human-AI Creative Partnership,” hosted by a2ru member institutions Virginia Tech, Carnegie Mellon and Penn State in partnership with a2ru. “Centering the Arts in the Age of AI: Advancing Education, Innovation, and Workforce Development through Creative Practices” was prepared by Daragh Byrne (Carnegie Mellon), Maryrose Flanigan (a2ru), R. Benjamin Knapp (Virginia Tech), Aaron Knochel (Penn State), and Lisa McNair (Virginia Tech). The report summarizes three main benefits of forging new partnerships between the arts and other fields leading in AI development, as well as outlining recommendations, key commitments, and corresponding actions developed in the 2-day summit. The executive summary concludes with a list of policy recommendations for government entities to ensure American competitiveness in AI through the Arts.
A New Hybrid Model for Faculty Hiring Workshops
Fleming, Gabriella Coloyan; Hunt, Grayson; Watson, Del; Mastronardi, Marialice; You, Sally; Contreras, Lydia; Borrego, Maura; Smith, Mark J. T. (2023-09-04)
This paper reports on a new model for faculty hiring workshops involving three components. The first part (Part 1) of the work is an asynchronous, self-guided course that includes video reflections and commentaries from some of our own colleagues about inclusive excellence, hiring legalities, and departmental culture. The second part (Part 2) is a virtual 90-minute interactive session with breakout room discussions overseen by a facilitator. The last part (Part 3) is a monthly offering of optional onehour discussion sessions to answer additional questions, support university-wide conversations and allow participants to probe more deeply into diversity hiring opportunities and challenges. To evaluate the workshops, we administered a survey immediately following Part 2 and later conducted interviews with participants at the conclusion of their faculty search. Survey results show that nearly all elements of the workshops were wellreceived and participants reported feeling confident in their understanding of inclusive excellence, legal issues associated with hiring, and the potential for unintended bias in reviewing candidate files. The paper also provides an analysis of the interview and survey data as well as some conclusions about the impact of these new efforts on inclusive hiring.
What engineering employers want: An analysis of technical and professional skills in engineering job advertisements
Fleming, Gabriella Coloyan; Klopfer, Michelle; Katz, Andrew; Knight, David B. (Wiley, 2024-04)
Background: Engineering curricula are built around faculty and accreditors' perceptions of what knowledge, skills, and abilities graduates will need in engineering careers. However, the people making these decisions may not be fully aware of what industry employers require for engineering graduates. Purpose/Hypothesis: The purpose of this study is to determine how industry employer-sought professional and technical skills vary among engineering disciplines and levels of education. Design/Method: Using a large sample (n = 26,103) of mined job advertisements, we use the O*NET skills database to determine the frequencies of different professional and technical skills for biomedical, civil, chemical, electrical, environmental, and mechanical engineers with bachelor's, master's, and PhD degrees. Results: The most frequently sought professional skill is problem-solving; the most frequently sought technical skills across disciplines are Microsoft Office software and computer-aided design software. Although not the most frequently requested skills, job advertisements including the Python and MATLAB programming languages paid significantly higher salaries than those without. Conclusions: The findings of this study have important implications for engineering program leaders and curriculum designers choosing which skills to teach students so that they are best prepared to get and excel in engineering jobs. The results also show which skills students can prioritize investing their time in so that they receive the largest financial return on their investment.
Professorial intentions of engineering PhDs from historically excluded groups: The influence of graduate school experiences
Fleming, Gabriella Coloyan; Cobb, Sydni Alexa; Borrego, Maura (Wiley, 2024-07)
Background: In addition to the benefits of a diverse faculty, many institutions are under pressure from students and administrators to increase the number of faculty from historically excluded backgrounds. Despite increases in the numbers of engineering PhD earners from these groups, the percentages of Black/African American and Hispanic/Latino tenure-track faculty have not increased, and the percentage of women remains low. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify how experiences in graduate school encourage or deter PhD earners from historically excluded groups in pursuing an engineering academic career. Method: We conducted 20 semi-structured interviews with engineering PhD students and recent graduates, with half of participants interested and half disinterested in pursuing an academic career after graduation. Results: Three key factors emerged as strongly influential on participants' desire to pursue an academic career: their relationship with their advisor, their perception of their advisor's work–life balance, and their perception of the culture of academia. Participants extrapolated their experiences in graduate school to their imagined lives as faculty. The results illuminate the reasons why engineering PhD earners from historically underrepresented groups remain in or leave the academic career pathway after graduate school. Conclusions: The findings of this study have important implications for how graduate students' and postdoc's relationships with their advisors as well as perceptions of their advisors' work–life balances and the culture of academia affect future faculty. We make recommendations on what students, faculty, and administrators can do to create a more inclusive environment to encourage students from historically excluded groups to consider academic careers.
Synergistic organizational influences: how universities strategically prepare graduate students for industry, government, and non-profit careers
Fleming, Gabriella Coloyan; Richardson, Amy Jo; Knight, David B.; Borrego, Maura; Deters, Jessica; Grote, Dustin (Springer, 2025-11-19)
A majority of engineering postgraduate students (Master’s and PhD) enter into jobs in industry, government, and non-profit organizations. However, most postgraduate programming is geared toward careers in academia. Our study examines how universities prepare engineering postgraduate students for careers outside of academia. We draw on interview data with administrators across 11 institutions and leverage an existing framework for organizational influences to identify how institutions leverage their organizational characteristics, organizational culture, and/or management strategies to prepare engineering postgraduate students for these careers. The highest-impact efforts were those that synergistically leveraged at least two organizational influences, such as utilizing an industry advisory board to design career-relevant curricula. We conclude with recommendations for how institutions can help their students be prepared for these career sectors.
Towards a Psychologically Realist, Culturally Responsive Approach to Engineering Ethics in Global Contexts
Clancy, Rockwell F.; Zhu, Qin; Streiner, Scott; Gammon, Andrea; Thorpe, Ryan (Springer, 2025-04-01)
This paper describes the motivations and some directions for bringing insights and methods from moral and cultural psychology to bear on how engineering ethics is conceived, taught, and assessed. Therefore, the audience for this paper is not only engineering ethics educators and researchers but also administrators and organizations concerned with ethical behaviors. Engineering ethics has typically been conceived and taught as a branch of professional and applied ethics with pedagogical aims, where students and practitioners learn about professional codes and/or Western ethical theories and then apply these resources to address issues presented in case studies about engineering and/or technology. As a result, accreditation and professional bodies have generally adopted ethical reasoning skills and/or moral knowledge as learning outcomes. However, this paper argues that such frameworks are psychologically “irrealist” and culturally biased: it is not clear that ethical judgments or behaviors are primarily the result of applying principles, or that ethical concerns captured in professional codes or Western ethical theories do or should reflect the engineering ethical concerns of global populations. Individuals from Western educated industrialized rich democratic cultures are outliers on various psychological and social constructs, including self-concepts, thought styles, and ethical concerns. However, engineering is more cross cultural and international than ever before, with engineers and technologies spanning multiple cultures and countries. For instance, different national regulations and cultural values can come into conflict while performing engineering work. Additionally, ethical judgments may also result from intuitions, closer to emotions than reflective thought, and behaviors can be affected by unconscious, social, and environmental factors. To address these issues, this paper surveys work in engineering ethics education and assessment to date, shortcomings within these approaches, and how insights and methods from moral and cultural psychology could be used to improve engineering ethics education and assessment, making them more culturally responsive and psychologically realist at the same time.
ROPES Hub Research Brief: Strengthening STEM Pathways – Lessons Learned Supporting Low-Income S-STEM Students
Major, Justin; Richardson, Amy Jo; Rodriguez, Sarah (2026-01-15)
Exploring experiences that foster recognition in engineering across race and gender
McIntyre, Brianna Benedict; Scalaro, Kelsey; Godwin, Allison; Kirn, Adam; Verdin, Dina (American Society for Engineering Education, 2024-10-01)
Background: Students' recognition beliefs have emerged as one of the most important components of engineering role identity development for early-career undergraduate students. Recognition beliefs are students' perceptions of how meaningful others, such as peers, instructors, and family, see them as engineers. However, little work has investigated the experiences that facilitate recognition beliefs, particularly across the intersections of race, ethnicity, and gender. Investigation of these experiences provides ways to understand how recognition may be supported in engineering environments and how White and masculine norms in engineering can shape marginalized students' experiences. Purpose: We examined how specific experiences theorized to promote recognition are related to recognition beliefs for students at the intersections of race, ethnicity, and gender. Based on self-reported demographics, we created 10 groups, including Asian, Black, Latino and Hispanic, Indigenous, and White cisgender men and Asian, Black, Latine/x/a/o and Hispanic, Indigenous, and White ciswomen, trans, and non-binary individuals. This article describes the patterns within each intersectional group rather than drawing comparisons across the groups, which can perpetuate raced and gendered stereotypes. Methods: The data came from a survey distributed in Fall 2017 (n = 2316). Ten multiple regression models were used to understand the recognition experiences that influenced students' recognition beliefs by intersectional group. Results: There is no one-size-fits-all approach to developing students' recognition beliefs. For example, family members referring to the student as an engineer are positively related to recognition beliefs for Asian, Black, Latino and Hispanic, and White cisgender men. Friends seeing Asian and White marginalized gender students as an engineer is predictive of recognition beliefs. Other recognition experiences, such as receiving compliments from an engineering instructor or peer about their engineering design and contributions to the team, do not influence the recognition beliefs of these early-career engineering students. Conclusion: This article emphasizes the need to draw on multiple experiences to support the equitable development of early-career engineers across race, ethnicity, and gender, and reveals patterns for recognition that may support future scholarship on effective classroom practices for recognition.
Engineering culture under stress: A comparative case study of undergraduate mechanical engineering student experiences
Deters, Jessica R.; Leydens, Jon A.; Case, Jennifer M.; Cowell, Margaret M. (American Society for Engineering Education, 2024-04-01)
Background: Engineering culture research to date has described the culture as rigid, chilly, and posing many barriers to entry. However, the COVID-19 pandemic provided an important opportunity to explore how engineering culture responds to a major disruption. Purpose: The purposes of this study are to understand how elements of engineering culture emerged in mechanical engineering students' perceptions of their classroom experiences during the pandemic and how their experiences varied across two national contexts. Method: This qualitative comparative case study examines undergraduate mechanical engineering students' perceptions of their experiences taking courses during the pandemic at two universities-one in the United States and one in South Africa. Semistructured interviews were conducted across both sites with 21 students and contextualized with 3 faculty member interviews. Student interviews were analyzed using an iterative process of deductive coding, inductive coding, and pattern coding. Results: We identified two key themes that characterized participants' experiences during the pandemic: hardness and access to resources. We found that students at both sites experienced two types of hardness-intrinsic and constructed-and were more critical of constructed forms of hardness. We found that the South African university's response to facilitating student access to resources was viewed by students as more effective when compared with the US university. Conclusions: We found that hardness remained a central feature of engineering culture, based on student perceptions, and found that students expressed awareness of resource-related differences. A key distinction emerged between intrinsic and constructed hardness.
ROPES Hub Research Brief: Strengthening STEM Pathways: Lessons Learned in S-STEM Faculty & Peer Mentoring
Becerra Montano, Jazmin; Lehr, Jane L.; Richardson, Amy Jo; Knight, David B. (2025-12-08)
ROPES Hub Research Brief: Strengthening STEM Pathways - Lessons Learned in S-STEM Identity
Rodriguez, Sarah L.; Blaney, Jennifer M.; Richardson, Amy Jo; Knight, David B. (2025-11-11)
An exploration of psychological safety and conflict in first-year engineering student teams
Huerta, Mark Vincent; Sajadi, Susan; Schibelius, Lisa; Ryan, Olivia Jane; Fisher, Marin (American Society for Engineering Education, 2024-07-01)
Background: Developing teamwork skills is a central objective of engineering education. Psychological safety and conflict management are pivotal components of teamwork, yet despite their significance, research in engineering project-based learning (PBL) contexts is scant. Understanding students' experiences with psychological safety and its interaction with conflict is crucial to inform PBL pedagogy. Purpose: This study delves into first-year engineering students' experiences of psychological safety and conflict, including their evolution in a PBL course. Methods: Throughout the semester, we collected data from 82 students via written reflections and focus groups. Employing a thematic analysis underpinned by the team conflict dynamics model, we characterized students' experiences with psychological safety and conflict. Findings: At the semester's outset, psychological safety was notably lacking. Students often hesitated to share ideas due to apprehensions about peer reactions and fears of negative judgments. As the semester advanced, consistent positive affirmations nurtured psychological safety, increasing students' confidence and readiness to discuss ideas openly and engage in healthy task conflict. Notably, process conflicts arising from absenteeism, poor communication, and procrastination were prevalent across teams. When unresolved, these conflicts eroded psychological safety, intensifying stress, exacerbating frustrations, and provoking relationship conflict. Conclusions: Our study underscores the intertwined nature of psychological safety and conflict in shaping the first-year design experience in student teams. We urge faculty to recognize their pivotal role in fostering an inclusive culture and highlight pedagogical strategies that can bolster psychological safety at the onset, encourage healthy task conflict, and monitor unhealthy process and relationship conflicts.
Exploring fundamental engineering course instructors' test usage beliefs and behaviors: A multicase study
Chew, Kai Jun; Matusovich, Holly M. (American Society for Engineering Education, 2024-10-01)
Background: Tests are commonly and heavily used in fundamental engineering courses (FECs) to assess student learning of concepts. With existing literature presenting mixed benefits and disadvantages of testing to students' motivation to learn and documenting widely alternative assessments, the lack of questioning of heavy and common test usage must be addressed to diversify classroom assessment and promote intentionality in test usage. Purpose/Hypothesis: This study begins to address the lack of questioning by exploring and uncovering test usage beliefs and behaviors of seven FEC instructors from two engineering departments in a land-grant, public, Research 1 university. Design/Method: Grounded in the Situated Expectancy-Value Theory (SEVT), we conducted a multicase study. Data include two interviews, course syllabi, and sample tests provided by the participants, and public documents from the institution and departments. We conducted a priori and emergent coding and thematic analysis to identify the beliefs and behaviors before developing individual case summaries for cross-case analysis to identify groupings. Results: Three test usage groups emerged: enthusiastic, default, and questioning. All test usage groups featured tests heavily in their FECs, resulting in varying alignment between these participants' test usage beliefs and behaviors. Conclusions: Our findings reveal the various factors that can shape FEC instructors' test usage beliefs and behaviors, and the complexity in terms of alignment. This work lays important implications, including laying the foundations for future scholarship on testing in engineering education research and leveraging findings to begin efforts in diversifying assessment approaches and promoting intentional test usage in FECs.
Agentic Actions and Agentic Perspectives Among Fellowship-Funded Engineering Doctoral Students
Denton, Maya; Chasen, Ariel; Fleming, Gabriella Coloyan; Borrego, Maura; Knight, David B. (MDPI, 2025-10-15)
In the US and Europe, institutions, foundations and governments invest significant financial resources in doctoral fellowships. Unlike other graduate funding mechanisms, fellowships are typically not tied to specific projects or job responsibilities and thus may afford more agency to students. We examined how fellowship funding contributes to or undermines agency of doctoral student recipients. We interviewed 23 US engineering doctoral students primarily funded on a fellowship for at least one semester. We qualitatively analyzed the interviews, using inductive and deductive methods of coding. Participants described increased flexibility with their projects, advisor, and personal life; additional access to physical resources, people and networks, and research experiences; and feelings of internal validation and external recognition from fellowship awards. Contexts of advising, timing of fellowship, source of fellowship, financial circumstances, and fellowship structure influenced their experiences. Agentic perspectives and actions included choice of advisor and research projects, switching advisors if necessary, completing internships and visiting other labs, and enjoying a higher standard of living. Advisor support is a necessity for students funded on fellowships. Multi-year fellowships from external sources, in comparison to internal sources, more often supported agency. We make recommendations for institutions to structure and administer fellowships to better support students.
Integrating Data Science Into Undergraduate Science and Engineering Courses: Lessons Learned by Instructors in a Multiuniversity Research-Practice Partnership
Naseri, Md. Yunus; Snyder, Caitlin; Perez-Rivera, Katherine X.; Bhandari, Sambridhi; Workneh, Habtamu Alemu; Aryal, Niroj; Biswas, Gautam; Henrick, Erin C.; Hotchkiss, Erin R.; Jha, Manoj K.; Jiang, Steven; Kern, Emily C.; Lohani, Vinod K.; Marston, Landon T.; Vanags, Christopher P.; Xia, Kang (IEEE, 2025-02-01)
Contribution: This article discusses a research-practice partnership (RPP) where instructors from six undergraduate courses in three universities developed data science modules tailored to the needs of their respective disciplines, academic levels, and pedagogies. Background: STEM disciplines at universities are incorporating data science topics to meet employer demands for data science-savvy graduates. Integrating these topics into regular course materials can benefit students and instructors. However, instructors encounter challenges in integrating data science instruction into their course schedules. Research Questions: How did instructors from multiple engineering and science disciplines working in an RPP integrate data science into their undergraduate courses? Methodology: A multiple case study approach, with each course as a unit of analysis, was used to identify data science topics and integration approaches. Findings: Instructors designed their modules to meet specific course needs, utilizing them as primary or supplementary learning tools based on their course structure and pedagogy. They selected a subset of discipline-agnostic data science topics, such as generating and interpreting visualizations and conducting basic statistical analyses. Although instructors faced challenges due to varying data science skills of their students, they valued the control they had in integrating data science content into their courses. They were uncertain about whether the modules could be adopted for use by other instructors, specifically by those outside of their discipline, but they all believed the approach for developing and integrating data science could be adapted to student needs in different situations.
Widening access and participation: Exploring discourses in academic writing from the USA and the UK
Case, Jennifer M. (Springer, 2025-08-01)
Widening access and participation feature prominently in higher education policy globally, and there are now significant academic communities engaged with implementing and interrogating initiatives aimed towards these goals. Despite an apparent global homogeneity in the use of this terminology, this study explores whether differing structural arrangements for higher education in different contexts might lead to subtly different meanings for the same terms. To investigate this question, this article analyses the discourses on expanding access to higher education in the Anglo-American world, focusing on the USA and the UK. While both countries have been at the forefront of higher education research on widening access, they exhibit starkly different systems concerning their structures, governance, and levels of youth participation. Using a discourse analysis of an exemplar academic text from each context, the article identifies key differences in how widening access to higher education is conceptualized across these two settings. Two structural features that are shown to significantly influence the discourses on widening access are the centralized admissions system in the UK (compared to the USA), and the theoretically open 'system' of access in the USA by virtue of the non-selective community college sector.
ROPES Hub Research Brief: Strengthening STEM Pathways - Lessons Learned in S-STEM Industry Partnerships
Ott, Robin; Newcomer, James; Richardson, Amy Jo; Work, Anya; Knight, David B. (2025-08-25)
College Choice Decisions: An Evaluation of Perna's Conceptual Model Across Populations and Cultural Contexts
Sanchez Padilla, V.; Schibelius, Lisa (ASEE Conferences, 2024-06-23)
Understanding the factors that influence college choice decisions is critical for broadening participation in engineering programs and STEM education broadly. Studies have shown that college choice can be impacted by a host of factors beyond just interest, including socioeconomic status, contextual factors, institutional features, availability of resources, and cultural knowledge, to name a few. The conceptual model of college choice proposed by Perna is valuable in understanding the layers of choice, which can vary based on context and population. Perna's model outlines four major contexts that frame college choice decisions for the individual: 1) social, economic & policy, 2) higher education, 3) school and community, and 4) habitus, which is at the center. Studies that utilize Perna's model employ one of these contexts or a combination of them. This work reviews eleven studies that draw on Perna's model for understanding college choice decisions based on three research questions centered on both population and cultural context. These studies range from a host of contexts and populations to understand college choice, including K-12 students, undergraduate students, and historically underrepresented populations in engineering. Through our review of case studies and applied research, we compare constructs used in Perna's model, such as layers of habitus, school/community, higher education, and socioeconomic status to analyze studies according to a targeted population. We take a critical lens of the implementation of Perna's model for college choice and the ways in which particular populations as the focus of study highlight how minority and non-minority populations can be affected in their decisions to pursue a college degree. From our analysis, we encourage the readers to evaluate and consider elements from case studies to seek potential transferability or generalizations that this model brings based on context. Therefore, we recommend continuing to explore several lenses and factors using this model and complementing wherever possible with other frameworks or theories to deepen the perspective of college choice decisions and resultant conclusions and implications that can be drawn for certain populations.
Stakeholders' Perceptions about an Undergraduate Engineering Program Accreditation Process in Ecuador: Exploratory Work in Progress
Padilla, V. Sanchez; Case, Jennifer M.; Murzi, Homero; Espinal, Albert (ASEE Conferences, 2023-06-25)

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