Background: Problem-oriented project work, also known as problem and project-based learning (PBL), is a popular educational approach in engineering education. However, the focus of the literature on the implementation of PBL has been at the course and institutional levels. Scant attention has been paid to the student experience, especially…

Background: Recent literature has identified students' academic well-being as an indicator of their persistence in their current study and competence development. While prior literature has focused on measuring students' academic well-being from psychological and mental health perspectives, limited studies have explored the ways in which the…

Background: Engineering education traditionally emphasizes technical skills, sometimes at the cost of under-preparing graduates for the real-world engineering context. In recent decades, attempts to address this issue include increasing project-based assignments and engineering design courses in curricula; however, a skills gap between education…

Background: Although open-ended projects are common in the first and final years of US engineering programs, middle-year courses tend to utilize simpler highly constrained problems. Such problems can elicit knowledge and social practices typical of school activity ("School World"), with limited applicability in real engineering work…

Background: Few studies have reported how students enact learner agency in a team setting or examined what elements of team settings students perceive as more supportive of their learning in problem- and project-based learning (PBL) processes. Purpose: This study explores how engineering students perceive their enactment of learner agency,…

Background: During the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, universities rapidly pivoted to online formats and were often unable to adhere to the best practices of online learning highlighted in prior literature. It is well documented that a variety of barriers impeded "normal" educational practices. Purpose/Hypothesis: The purpose of this…

Background: Despite well-documented benefits, instructor adoption of active learning has been limited in engineering education. Studies have identified barriers to instructors' adoption of active learning, but there is no well-tested instrument to measure instructors perceptions of these barriers. Purpose: We developed and tested an instrument to…

Background: Research shows that active pedagogies could play an important role in achieving more equitable outcomes for diverse groups of students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Although flipped classes are a popular active methodology, there is a lack of high-quality studies assessing their impact in ecologically…

Background: Recent engineering education research has found improved learning outcomes when instructors engage students actively (e.g., through practice problems) rather than passively (e.g., in lectures). As more instructors shift toward active learning, research needs to identify how different types of activities affect students' cognitive…

Background: Project-based learning has shown promise in improving learning outcomes for diverse students. However, studies on its impacts have largely focused on the perceptions of students and instructors or students' immediate performance. This study reports the impact of taking a project-based introductory engineering course on students'…

Background: A factor related to students' course performance that has seen limited research compared to other academic factors is the time of day a class is offered. Because of students' chronotypes (i.e., preferred time of day to study or work), time of class can influence attendance, which has a strong correlation with students' performance in a…

Background: Little is known about how students engage in ethical decision-making, especially when designing in messy, real-life contexts. To prepare ethically competent engineers, educators need a richer understanding of students' ethical decision-making throughout the course of the design process. Purpose/Hypothesis: This study examines students'…

Background: This exploratory study uses multimodal approaches to explore undergraduate student engagement via topic emotions and electrodermal activity (EDA) in different engineering design method activities and with different instructional delivery formats (e.g., lecture vs. active learning). Purpose/Hypothesis: The goal of this research is to…

Background: Little is understood about how kindergarten students respond to literacy-enriched engineering activities and how engineering-centered literature (picture and story books) can be used to support engineering engagement and content understanding. Purpose: This study sought to understand the effect of engineering-centered literature and…

Background Engineering: Faculty members should adopt effective pedagogical approaches in order to maximize student learning. The beliefs of faculty members about instructional practice are an important construct in determining what and how they teach. Purpose: This study investigates the effect of faculty members' involvement in model-eliciting…