African American and Black women are twice as likely to enroll in higher education in comparison to Black men. However, when it comes to engineering degrees awarded in 2015, only 24% of the Black recipients were women. A potential solution may be to introduce engineering to pre-college Black female students through extracurricular program. Being…

Since 1996 ABET has mandated that undergraduate engineering degree granting institutions focus on learning outcomes such as professional skills (i.e. solving unstructured problems and working in teams). As a result, engineering curricula were restructured to include team based learning--including team charters. Team charters were diffused into…

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was: (1) to document the design and implementation process of an online video-based pre-arrival course that was intended to cultivate Asian students' willingness to communicate in American Classrooms; (2) to assess the effectiveness of the course by measuring students' oral proficiency and willingness to…

Successfully interacting with those from different cultures is essential to excel in any field, particularly when global, transnational collaborations in the workplace are increasingly common. However, many higher education students in engineering are not explicitly taught how to display the global competency skills desired by future employers. To…

This dissertation presents research that investigated how first grade students' ability to construct solutions and to plan through drawing for engineering design problems is related to their participation in a LEGO-based engineering curriculum with two variations on the instruction for planning. The quasi-experimental design engaged two first…

The enhancement of critical thinking skills is necessary for students pursuing degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. A three-year mixed methods study conducted at a Historically Black College and University in Baltimore, Maryland focused on enhancing critical thinking skills for African American students.…

The purpose of this research was to investigate the impact of engineering design classroom activities on conceptual change in science, and on attitudes toward and knowledge about engineering. Students were given a situated learning context and a rationale for learning science in an active, inquiry-based method, and worked in small collaborative…