Engineering Commons^™

Understanding Peer Interactions In Undergraduate Engineering Education, Jack C. Elliott

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Whether they occur inside or outside the classroom, social interactions between undergraduate students play a key role in student success. As a result, engineering education researchers have sought to understand why students interact with certain peers, and which types of interactions relate to positive student outcomes. While existing studies show promising results for formal group assignments, most have been conducted in a single undergraduate course. Because important student interactions occur outside and inside courses, more research is needed to fully understand (a) why students choose to, or not to, interact with other students, and (b) how these interactions relate to …

Investigating The Impact Of Pre-Professional Organization Participation On Undergraduate Technology And Engineering Education Student Retention And Interest In Teaching, Emily Yoshikawa-Ruesch

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

The field of Technology and Engineering Education (TEE) has evolved in name and content throughout its existence. Throughout these evolutions, the number of TEE programs across the United States have decreased along with a decrease in the number of students graduating from undergraduate TEE programs. Previous investigations into the recruitment of TEE students have identified social interactions with TEE program faculty and technology and engineering educators as influential in students' interest in teaching technology and engineering at the secondary level. This study sought to investigate how social interactions through participation in Technology and Engineering Educators Association (TEECA), as a community …

Student Reliance On Simulations: The Extent That Engineering Students Rely On The Outcomes Of Their Simulations, Jonathan Anderson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

The purpose of this research was to investigate the factors that contributed to engineering education students’ reliance on technology while learning new concepts. The researcher hypothesized that students would give reliance to their technology, even in the face of evidence that the technology was not working as intended. This research used a mixed-methods approach to answer the research questions. Three questions guided the research: (1) How are the participant’s level of automation complacency and the correctness of the simulation that participant is using related?; (2) How is automation bias related to a participant’s ability to recognize errors in a simulation?; …

Understanding Support For Student Veterans And Servicemembers In Public Undergraduate Engineering Programs, Hannah Wilkinson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Current efforts to increase research in diversity, equity, and inclusion in engineering education have included research with military students pursuing undergraduate degrees in engineering at civilian, public academic institutions. In this thesis research, military students are defined as undergraduate students who a) have completed their service in the U.S. Armed Forces and are considered military veterans, and/or b) are current enlisted service members, such as in the U.S. Reserves or National Guard. An emerging topic of interest within the military student literature in engineering education has sought to explore the influence of “institutional agents” within military students’ experiences. The …

Subjective Wellbeing Of Undergraduate Engineering Students: A Mixed Methods Study, Muhammad Asghar

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

In higher education, the prevalence of mental health issues among students has raised concerns regarding their overall success and wellbeing. While existing research often focuses on identifying and addressing mental health problems, there is a lack of emphasis on understanding the positive contributors to students' mental health. In this study, I expand the concept of mental health beyond the absence of negative mental health states to include the presence of positive mental health aspects through the concept of Subjective Wellbeing (SWB) (feeling that your life is going well, not badly), of engineering undergraduate participants. Both qualitative and quantitative data were …

Understanding The Effects Of A Mobile Flow Visualization Learning Tool On Engineering Undergraduate Interest In Fluid Mechanics, Lori M. Openshaw

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Fluid mechanics is a difficult engineering course that tends to act as a weed-out course for undergraduate students. Despite this, fluid mechanics is critical, with related careers in disciplines such as Mechanical, Aerospace, Civil, Environmental, Biological, Ocean, and Naval engineering. Within these fields, there is a lack of graduates with sufficient fluid mechanics knowledge to fill the available positions. One solution to this career pipeline is to increase student interest and understanding of fluid mechanics.

Efforts to make fluid mechanics more interesting and easily understood include curricular changes such as emphasizing historical aspects of fluids, computer simulations that model complex …

A Questionnaire Survey Of Student Engagement Among First-Generation College Students In Engineering, Abigail Lehto

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

First-generation college (FGC) students are defined as students whose parents do not have a bachelor's or graduate degree. FGC students tend to face more overall challenges in the college environment than their continuing-generation counterparts. Often, FGC students have lower grade-point-averages (GPAs) and are less likely to graduate than their peers. In majors like engineering, the struggles that first-generation college students face can be further magnified. This quantitative study examines the activities FGC students in engineering engage in based on the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). Questions from the NSSE cover different educational activities and are categorized into ten educational …

Formative Assessment In Engineering Education: Exploring Ways To Enhance Students' Learning Achievement, Assad Iqbal

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Formative assessments have been found to enhance students’ learning across a variety of disciplines, educational levels, and laboratory and classroom settings. Research attributes the positive effects of formative assessments in improving students’ learning to its (backward and forward) testing effects. Moreover, formative assessments provide an extra opportunity to students to assess their learning early in the learning process, reflect on their learning, and identify address learning gaps and misconceptions (if any) using feedback.

However, optional nature of formative assessments and having no stakes associated with them to have any bearing on final grades offers two challenges to capitalize on their …

Investigating The Habits Of Mind Of Practicing Engineers, Theresa K. Green

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

One goal of undergraduate engineering education is to prepare students with the knowledge, skills, and decision-making strategies that are necessary for success in engineering practice. One proposed method to teach students these skills is to incorporate habits of mind into K-12 and undergraduate curricula. Habits of mind are the intelligent, social behaviors that engineers should aspire to have when solving problems, engaging with others, and dealing with uncertainty. Previous literature has suggested that incorporating ideas about habits of mind in educational curricula can teach students the disciplinary skills, technical knowledge, and social values that would help prepare them to enter …

A Mixed-Methods Approach To Explore Student Perceived Needs For Peer Mentorship In A College Of Engineering, Darcie Christensen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

“Nobody makes it alone. Nobody has made it alone” (NOVA SHRM & Dulles SHRM, 2012, p. 5). Mentoring generally has positive outcomes, such as increasing output, staying in work or school, increasing confidence, and others (Campbell & Campbell, 2007; Crisp & Cruz, 2009; Eby et al., 2008; NASEM, 2019; Pfund et al., 2016). This dissertation study focused on student perceived needs for peer mentorship in engineering, which can fill in gaps of traditional mentorship by pairing mentors and mentees at similar levels, increasing comfort and emotional support to mentees (Allen et al., 2017; Haggard et al., 2011; Kram & Isabella, …

Transfer Of Learning For K-12 Stem Teachers: From The Gear Up Engineering Camp Professional Learning Experience To The Classroom, Ryan F. Barlow

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Because of the new Utah Science with Engineering Education (SEEd) standards, which are based on the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), Utah science teachers in K-12 schools are now being asked to incorporate engineering into their science classes. Many science teachers in the State of Utah do not have a background in engineering and have not received training in how to incorporate engineering into their classes. To help remedy this problem, six STEM teachers from the State of Utah, and one STEM teacher from Nevada, came to the campus of Utah State University in July 2019 to participate with a …

Systems Thinking In Engineering Design: Differences In Expert Vs. Novice And Relationship To Personality Traits, Yuzhen Luo

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Systems thinking is the ability to see the big picture and the related elements when designing, and how these relationships form the big picture. In engineering design, systems thinking is valuable to both industry, as well as engineering education. As such, it creates opportunities for researchers to better understand systems thinking of both professional engineers in industry, who are assumed to be the experts, and engineering students in higher education, who are assumed to be the novices. The purpose of this study was to compare and identify the differences between expert and novice systems thinking in engineering design. Additionally, the …

"You Can Tell They Care": A Phenomenographic Study Of Student Experiences With Empathic Concern Expressed By Professors In Engineering, Kate Youmans

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In order to address the increasingly complex challenges of the 21st century, there is a need to continue to grow the technical workforce by improving graduation rates of engineering students. To accomplish this, the culture of engineering programs must shift from demanding or intimidating to more inclusive and supportive. Professors can play a critical role in creating these cultures by building relationships with students. Empathic concern is essential in building relationships that can encourage student growth and development. This form of empathy, sometimes referred to as care or concern, is expressed through actions of understanding, compassion, and non-judgement. While research …

The Influences Of Calculus I On Engineering Student Persistence, Amie Baisley

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

About half of the students that are declared engineering majors end up leaving engineering within their first two years at the university. This happens following the required math and science courses that these students must take before getting into the technical engineering coursework. There are two systems that students must be a part of at the university to feel comfortable and have the desire to continue on in their degree. These include the academic system and the social system. The experiences engineering students have during their first required math course, Calculus I, is likely not promoting integration into these two …

Career Prospects And Resources Of Domestic Engineering Doctoral Students, Laura A. Gelles

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Career prospects are a motivating factor for entry and retention of doctoral students, especially in the discipline of engineering. While doctoral student training provides them with highly specialized skills to be an independent researcher, they may not have the requisite skills or guidance to secure the job position of their choice. Therefore, it is important to provide doctoral students with opportunities, training, and information (i.e., resources) about different types of careers to not only ensure they are productive contributors of teaching and research, but also equip them for future career prospects. Research techniques based upon in-depth narrative interviews and combining …

Understanding Industry’S Expectations Of Engineering Communication Skills, Lilian Maria De Souza Almeida

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The importance of communication in the engineering profession is widely acknowledged by various stakeholders, including industry, academia, professional engineers, and engineering students. Even though alternative strategies to help students improve their ability to communicate professionally have been approached by many engineering programs across the country, research indicates a continued dissatisfaction of employers when it comes to the performance of engineers as communicators in the workplace. This perspective suggests efforts to improve students’ communication skills in universities may be inconsistent with workplace needs, revealing an apparent gap between what is taught and what is expected from engineering professionals. This gap provides …

Using An Engineering Design Process To Bring The Local Community Into The Technology And Engineering Education Classroom, James M. Baker

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This plan B project documents the practice of using an authentic project to teach an engineering design process to high school pre-engineering students and documenting the project preparing a manuscript for journal publication.

The manuscript prepared for publication explores the details of working with local business owners and teachers from different departments and curricular foci to design, fabricate, and install an illuminated sign for a local business. This sign project was presented by an alum of the school to provide an authentic project for multiple courses to collaboratively create a solution for a local community business. Twenty-five students in two …

Supporting Adolescent Metacognition In Engineering Design Through Scripted Prompts From Peer Tutors: A Comparative Case Study, Kristin Marie Strong

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In 2013, developers of the Next Generation Science Standards implemented national K-12 directives and elevated engineering design to the level of scientific inquiry. Teaching design, however, is challenging to educators due to the complex nature of design problems, which cannot be solved via simple algorithms. Solving design problems requires a more reflective and iterative approach that emphasizes metacognitive skills like planning, monitoring, and taking another person’s perspective. Educators are further challenged by children’s immature metacognitive skills, which may be insufficient to engage in the entire design process.

A qualitative study of paired seventh graders demonstrated a pragmatic learning activity for …

Spatial Ability Degradation In Undergraduate Mechanical Engineering Students During The Winter Semester Break, Benjamin J. Call

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Spatial ability represents our ability to mentally arrange, rotate, and explore objects in multiple dimensions. This ability has been found to be important for engineers and engineering students. Past research has shown that many interventions can be created to boost an individual’s spatial ability. In fact, past research has indicated that engineering students significantly increase in spatial ability without an intervention while they are enrolled in certain engineering courses. Some researchers have claimed that the spatial ability boosts are permanent after an intervention. However, most researchers do not check the validity of that claim with continued assessment after more than …

An Experimental Comparison Of Student Motivation Between Two Computational Thinking-Based Stem Activities: Vex-Based Automation And Robotics And A Quadcopter Activity, Cory J. Ortiz

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this study was to compare student motivation between two junior high level computational thinking based STEM curricular activities. These two activities were a newly developed quadcopter based curriculum and a VEX based curricular activity developed for Project Lead the Way’s Gateway to Technology – Automation and Robotics course. Student motivation was assessed using an assessment called My Class Activities which broke motivation into four constructs: interest, challenge, choice, and enjoyment.

This study assessed students in three schools in a northern Utah school district. Students were assessed after receiving each curriculum. Assessment responses were then coded and analyzed. …

A Comparison Of The Effects Of Enhanced Hands-On Intervention Versus Textbook Interventions To Understand Student Misconceptions In Particle Dynamics, Gang Liu

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The present dissertation research examined the effects of applying the enhanced hands-on intervention to reveal and correct student misunderstandings of the concepts in engineering dynamics, especially particle dynamics. We involved 36 student volunteers for three different research topics. The student participants were divided into two groups in each research topic: enhanced hands-on intervention and pure textbook groups. An interview and intervention was conducted with each participant individually.

The author introduced the “Think-Aloud” method with two kinds of interventions mentioned above. The participants were required to speak out their thought process loud as they worked on the two sets of assessment …

Attracting Secondary Students To Stem Using A Summer Engineering Camp, Murad Mahmoud

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this research was to study the benefits of having middle school students attend a summer camp focused on the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). A lot of research funding is being used in such camps to help get more students into STEM fields as there is a lack of graduates in those fields. Therefore, it is important to understand the benefits and effectiveness of such camps.

Students, teachers and parents were involved in this research. Students and teachers attended a one-week engineering camp at Utah State University while parents were involved via a blog …

Senior Computer Science Students’ Task And Revised Task Interpretation While Engaged In Programming Endeavor, Andreas Febrian

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Developing a computer program is not an easy task. Studies reported that a large number of computer science students decided to change their major due to the extreme challenge in learning programming. Fortunately, studies also reported that learning various self-regulation strategies may help students to continue studying computer science. This study is interested in assessing students’ self-regulation, in specific their task understanding and its revision during programming endeavors. Task understanding is specifically selected because it affects the entire programming endeavor.

In this qualitative case study, two female and two male senior computer science students were voluntarily recruited as research participants. …

Towards Alternative Pathways: Nontraditional Student Success In A Distance-Delivered, Undergraduate Engineering Transfer Program, Angela L. Minichiello

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Nontraditional students, including those who delay college entry, attend college part-time, work full-time, or financially support themselves or dependents, are highly underrepresented in engineering education. Recently, the United States began emphasizing a need to access this untapped human potential. U.S. educational policymakers now seek increased nontraditional student participation in engineering education through the creation of robust new pathways—within and between 2- and 4- year institutions—to undergraduate engineering degrees.

To be impactful, alternative pathways must be grounded in knowledge related to nontraditional student success in engineering. To access this knowledge, this study qualitatively examined the experiences of 14 nontraditional students who …

The Effects Of Interactive Computer Simulation And Animation On Student Learning Of Rigid Body Dynamics: A Mixed Method Study, Oai Ha

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Engineering Dynamics (ED) courses are known as challenging and demanding for undergraduate students majored in many engineering fields, such as mechanical and aerospace engineering and civil and environmental engineering. The course is built upon the foundation and framework of mathematics and physics and requires students to have strong abstract thinking and reasoning skills. Rigid body dynamics (RBD), the second part of ED, investigates kinematics and kinetics of rigid bodies and is considered as a difficult subject by many undergraduate students because the course requires them to visualize abstract objects in motions. Although there have been many studies reporting the uses …

Interactive Computer Simulation And Animation Learning Modules: A Mixed-Method Study Of Their Effects On Students' Problem Solving In Particle Dynamics, Yongquing Guo

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Engineering dynamics is a fundamental core course in many undergraduate engineering curricula. This course is widely regarded as one of the most difficult engineering courses for students to succeed in. A variety of instructional strategies, such as hands-on experimentation, multimedia games, and computer simulation and animation (CSA), have been developed to improve student learning. Among these instructional strategies, CSA has been receiving increasing attention and applications in the international engineering education community. CSA provides students with a visualization tool and a constructivist environment to better understand various engineering problems.

The goal of this dissertation research was to improve student learning …

Persistence Of Engineering Undergraduates At A Public Research University, Matthew Meyer

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This mixed-methodological study determined which factors contributed to undergraduate student attrition, and evaluated reasons ten undergraduate engineering students failed to complete their engineering degree at a major western research university. Institutional data were collected on engineering students over a multi-year period. These data were separated into groups of engineering students who persisted to the Junior year of their undergraduate engineering program (persisters), and those students who left their engineering program before their Junior year (nonpersisters). A quantitative analysis comparing these two groups of students uncovered significant predictors of persistence/nonpersistence in the engineering program. Qualitative inquiry was used to identify factors …

African American Female Engineering Students' Persistence In Stereotype-Threatening Environments: A Critical Race Theory Perspective, Stacie Lesure Gregory

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

African American women are grossly underrepresented in engineering. Despite their low representation in engineering colleges, some are able to persist and earn their degrees. This qualitative study sought to better understand the strategies 10 African American women employed to help them remain resilient in engineering degree programs. For this investigation, there was an underlying assumption that African American women who persist in engineering must contend with stereotype threat. Stereotype threat is a psychosocial phenomenon in which people in stigmatized social categories fear confirming negative stereotypes about their group.

Ten African American female women who have persisted in engineering degree programs …

Successful Paths To Becoming A Lean Organization In The Construction Industry, Robert D. Warcup

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Lean construction is defined as the continuous process of eliminating waste, with the goal of increasing value on construction projects to the owner and to all stakeholders of a project. It has gained considerable momentum since the early 2000s because of its potential for problem-solving and increased productivity, especially as many construction firms still struggle to adapt to an ever-changing industry. This study was designed to assist construction companies, especially company executives and managers, to better understand the requirements of a lean transformation by describing the paths of three highly successful lean construction firms from the U.S.

Nine lean advocates, …

Students' Task Interpretation And Conceptual Understanding In Electronics Laboratory Work, Presentacion Rivera-Reyes

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Students’ interpretation of an assigned task is a key determinant of setting goals, choosing strategies to accomplish those goals, monitoring, and self-evaluating outcomes. Laboratory activities, including worksheets, quizzes, and other assignment are designed to improve the understanding of concepts taught in the classroom. The main concern of many laboratory students is simply completion of the task because it is critical to their success. Three objectives were proposed in this study, to investigate: (1) the students’ interpretation of the task before and after the completion of the laboratory activity, (2) the interpretation of the task differs between high- and low- coregulated …