The need for addressing global and societal problems is stronger than ever, as demonstrated by the UN Sustainable Development Goals and National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges. However, engineering undergraduate students rarely get to experience engaging with the associated real-world projects and challenges. This has the potential to…

Background: Students' academic self-efficacy maximizes likelihood for success and retention, yet prior research suggests that historically underrepresented (minoritized) undergraduate students in higher education and in college-level engineering show lower self-efficacy, which has been linked to histories of systemic exclusion. To address such…

In the years 2005 to 2019, the number of American women receiving a degree in engineering was below 20 percent. Furthermore, even after receiving a degree in engineering, 40% of those girls do not enter the profession. While the above graduation data is essential for understanding the problem at the end of the educational journey, it doesn't point…

Broadening participation in STEM education programs and boosting the STEM workforce, specifically increasing interest in engineering, has been a growing focus of the U.S. education system (Lawrence & Mancus, 2012; Strimel, Grubbs, & Wells, 2017). The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects overall STEM employment to grow by 8.9% from 2014 to…

This research investigates students' argumentation quality in engineering design thinking. We implemented Learning by Evaluating (LbE) using Adaptive Comparative Judgment (ACJ), where students assess pairs of items to determine the superior one. In ACJ, students provided rationales for their critiques, explaining their selections. Fifteen students…

This study examined self, peer, and instructor ratings of leadership behaviors in four areas: collaboration, creativity, organization/control, and competition for 98 students in one civil engineering capstone design course. There was no significant difference between ratings of students based on gender identification within or across all three…

Contribution: The current study finds that female-identified students report stronger associations between "helping others" and interest in bioengineering/biomedical engineering than non-females, while they report less interest in electrical and computer engineering overall, with similar associations to factors such as…

Science is a human endeavor; the way it is taught, applied, and in some cases exclude populations from having access to it, may affect people for generations (NGSS Lead States 2013). Science education continues to be a complex civil rights issue (Tate 2001), but there is hope. Movements to promote just, equitable, and inclusive opportunities to…

Given the increased attention on pre-college engineering education and its disciplinary nature pertaining to language, discourses, and communicative practices, this "state-of-the-art literature review" focused on findings of research articles informed by qualitative and quantitative data to foreground communicative literacies within…

The persistent underrepresentation of women in engineering continues to be a complex and difficult challenge. The interactions of young women and their parents during early, family-oriented engineering design experiences can provide girls with opportunities to express agency during an engineering activity, which can ultimately contribute to the…

Challenges for students who are "first-in-family" to attend university have been discussed within widening participation discourse. However, in the UK, "first-in-family" or first-generation students have frequently been conflated with those experiencing poverty or from lower socio-economic groups. This research integrated…

"Beyond Blackboards" is an inquiry-centered, after-school program designed to enhance middle school students' engagement with engineering through design-based experiences focused on the 21st Century Engineering Challenges. Set within a predominantly lowincome, majority-minority community, our study aims to investigate the impact of…

Locally or individually, STEM programs provide additional opportunities to engage K-12 students, including those from marginalized groups, with the support of STEM outreach organizations through the co-construction and implementation of STEM activities during school, out of school, at home, and in the community. Research suggests that…

Globally, many people spend most of their time interacting with the products of engineering design as they wear clothes, drink clean water, use transportation systems, and more. Given the omnipresence of engineering design, whose material results are felt daily in people's lives, it seems especially important that students learn to recognize and…

Research suggests that, to narrow the gender gap in engineering, we should focus on helping young girls identify with engineering both because gendered attitudes emerge around kindergarten and because identity is more predictive than performance on persistence in the field. This qualitative study sought to understand the impact of collaborative…