Upon graduation from an undergraduate institution, engineering graduates are expected to have a baselevel skill in technical skills related to their discipline. Teaching technical skills comes naturally to engineering programs as the conceptual understanding of the material form the foundation of engineering ability. However, engineering graduates…

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…

Youth who are learning engineering while participating in design teams are also learning to manage design groupwork. This design groupwork involves negotiating and managing relationships with teammates and educators. The nuances of this relational work are underexplored, yet important to attend to because these intragroup interactions establish…

As the engineering education system continuously evolves to meet the demands of modern industry and society, there is a need for a methodology that would manage and resolve the complexities inherent in engineering educational systems. Model-based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is a structured approach to system design that utilizes models across all…

Biomedical engineering (BME) undergraduate students take courses that allow them to develop skills in multiple disciplinary areas (e.g., biology, medicine, chemical, mechanical, electrical engineering) and as such, have a wide array of career opportunities available to them upon graduation. While their broad curricular exposure lends itself to…

Students' academic success and wellbeing are interconnected, yet university classrooms rarely promote mental health. To bridge the divide between academic and social-emotional learning, I introduced a classroom intervention titled the Care Bear Connection, during which students were required to post a message in Slack offering support to their…

The manuscripts in this dissertation enhance the research on the psychology of the undergraduate student experience in laboratory courses, those that typify collaborative practical work. For science and engineering fields in higher education, persistence of students who identify as female and/or as a member of an underrepresented ethnic minority…

My research uses interaction analysis to investigate two STEM education spaces and discuss how instructors can and should notice and address unproductive group dynamics, particularly in the service of creating more humane learning environments. The primary goal of this work is to investigate how inequities emerge and continue as interactions in…

Engineering students are expected to develop professional skills in addition to their technical knowledge as outcomes of accredited engineering programs. Among the most critical professional skills is the ability to work effectively in a team. Working effectively in teams has learning benefits and also provides an environment for developing other…

This thesis is an article-based (3-paper format) dissertation. In the first article, the research team adapted an input-process-outcome (IPO) model of group-level processes in the classroom, as a theoretical framework, to examine students' experiences regarding pre-college engineering curricula, classroom environments, and their experiences with…

21st century educational reform initiatives value creativity, collaboration, innovation, and higher-order thinking (Scardamalia, 2002), the skills needed for students to successfully address the complex engineering challenges facing society. "A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practice, Crosscutting Concepts and Core Ideas" (NRC,…

The use of student-centered instructional strategies is a common practice in engineering classes. Instructors often use such strategies to promote greater learning outcomes and student engagement. However, prior research studies also acknowledge students' resistance and lack of motivation towards such innovative strategies. In both cases, the…

In the United States, there has been an increased emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and especially engineering, in pre-college settings. There are several potential benefits of this, including: increasing the quantity and diversity of students who pursue STEM careers, improving all students' technological…

Piaget's classic work on cognitive development showed that engaging learners in critical discussions with peers about ideas that are "different" than theirs leads to deep conceptual understanding. Implementing such an approach in college-level STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) courses has some specific challenges: (a) Short…

Systems engineering teams' value-creation for enterprises is slower than possible due to inefficiencies in communication, learning, common knowledge collaboration and leadership conduct. This dissertation outlines the surrounding people, process and technology dimensions for higher performing engineering teams. It describes a true experiment…