Engineering Commons^™

Career: Advocating For Engineering Through Hidden Curricula: A Multi‐Institutional Mixed Method Approach, Idalis Villanueva

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Usu Classroom Outfitted For Student Stress Research | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

News Release - LOGAN, UTAH, Dec. 12, 2016 – Utah State University will soon be home to a specialized classroom designed to measure the triggers and effects of student academic stress.

Dr. Idalis Villanueva, an assistant professor of engineering education at USU, is the principal investigator and is targeting her research around engineering programs.

New Visiting Scholar | Engineering Education, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Professor Jacek Uziak is currently a visiting scholar in the Department of Engineering Education at Utah State University. He is helping the Department in the design of a Graduate Certificate in Engineering Education to be offered as an online program starting next fall. He is also collaborating with different faculty in various areas of Engineering Education research including the teaching of mechanics, engineering leadership, and application of learning management systems (LMS).

I'M Not What You Think I Am | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Published in Creating Tomorrow – Oct 15, 2016 – Stacie Gregory was always a good student. Math and science came easy to the Indianapolis, Ind., native who went on to earn an undergraduate degree in physics from Spelman College and a master’s in material science and engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology.

She even kept up with a strenuous workload as a PhD student at North Carolina State University in the late 1990s. But despite meeting academic goals, Gregory felt a growing burden that held her back and ultimately led her to drop out of the program. What happened? She …

Utilizing Electroencephalography Measurements For Comparison Of Task-Specific Neural Efficiencies: Spatial Intelligence Tasks, Benjamin J. Call, Wade Goodridge, Idalis Villanueva, Nicholas Wan, Kerry Jordan

Engineering Education Faculty Publications

Spatial intelligence is often linked to success in engineering education and engineering professions. The use of electroencephalography enables comparative calculation of individuals' neural efficiency as they perform successive tasks requiring spatial ability to derive solutions Neural efficiency here is defined as having less beta activation, and therefore expending fewer neural resources, to perform a task in comparison to other groups or other tasks. For inter-task comparisons of tasks with similar durations, these measurements may enable a comparison of task type difficulty. For intra-participant and inter-participant comparisons, these measurements provide potential insight into the participant's level of spatial ability and different …

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 …

Student From Reu Project Wins Presentation At Emerging Researchers National Conference | Engineering Education, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

A student from last year’s REU project, Bethany Fronhofer, attended the 2016 Emerging Researchers National (ERN) Conference. Where she spoke about the work that she did along with Sarah Schott in Dr. Idalis Villanueva’s lab. Bethany’s presentation won first place for the Science and Mathematics Education/Social and Behavioral Sciences Undergraduate Oral Presentation category.

Use Of Galvanic Skin Responses, Salivary Biomarkers, And Self-Reports To Assess Undergraduate Student Performance During A Laboratory Exam Activity, Idalis Villanueva, Maria Valladares, Wade H. Goodridge

Engineering Education Faculty Publications

Typically, self-reports are used in educational research to assess student response and performance to a classroom activity. Yet, addition of biological and physiological measures such as salivary biomarkers and galvanic skin responses are rarely included, limiting the wealth of information that can be obtained to better understand student performance. A laboratory protocol to study undergraduate students' responses to classroom events (e.g., exams) is presented. Participants were asked to complete a representative exam for their degree. Before and after the laboratory exam session, students completed an academic achievement emotions self-report and an interview that paralleled these questions when participants wore a …

Thinking Like A Pro: How Experts And Novices Solve Problems Differently | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Jan. 7, 2016 – Engineering education experts at Utah State University are narrowing in on new insights into why young engineering students drop out of their programs or change majors.

It’s an increasingly important conversation as government and industry leaders push for more college graduates in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, fields. And yet nationwide, only about half of all engineering students complete their degrees.

A Research Experiences For Undergraduates (Reu) Site Program On Engineering Education Research, Ning Fang, Oenardi Lawanto, Wade H. Goodridge, Idalis Villanueva, Kurt Becker

Engineering Education Faculty Publications

This paper describes a U.S. National Science Foundation-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site program that aims to provide undergraduate students with experiences in engineering education research (i.e., education research in the context of engineering). This paper provides an overview of the program and briefly describes the common intellectual focus of this REU Site program. Over the past two years, a total of 16 undergraduate students, seven graduate mentors, and five faculty mentors have actively participated in the program. Four important components of the program are described in this paper, including student recruitment and selection, REU seminars, weekly reflections, and …