Contribution: Although a limited number of studies have compared textbooks used in introductory science courses (ISCs) and technical engineering courses (TECs), such a study has not been conducted regarding the Laplace transform (LT). The LT is one of the important topics that electrical engineering students learn as part of their undergraduate…

Current views on the teaching of differential equations (DEs) are shifting towards the use of graphical and numerical methods. Motivated by recent research suggesting that puzzle-based learning (PzBL) can improve the teaching and learning of STEM subjects and by the lack of relevant studies for DEs, we designed two tasks--sophism and paradox--to…

Metrics-based reasoning patterns diffuse from core to periphery as peripheral and semi-peripheral countries adopt Western evaluation standards as formal categories or cultural scripts. While these scripts are applied across disciplines, each field maintains its own traditional criteria for scientific assessment. Consequently, scholars navigate…

Globally, young people are asking questions about social responsibility. California addresses this in the second draft of its updated mathematics framework, still unreleased as this article goes to press. It defines these questions as authentic, suggesting that classrooms "include, at times . . . contexts students can engage with as a way to…

Investigating students' thinking in classroom tasks, particularly in science and engineering, is essential for improving educational practices and advancing student learning. In this context, the notion of "Ways of Thinking" (WoT) has gained traction in STEM education, offering a framework to explore how students approach and solve…

A "leaky pipeline" exists for women to obtain a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) leadership position in the United States (U.S.). A deeper dive into what was holding women back from an engineering leadership position is imperative in today's technology-driven world. Utilizing feminist theory as a theoretical lens,…

A "leaky pipeline" exists for women to obtain a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) leadership position in the United States (U.S.). A deeper dive into what was holding women back from an engineering leadership position is imperative in today's technology-driven world. Utilizing feminist theory as a theoretical lens,…

Selecting a field of study is an important decision made by thousands of incoming postsecondary students each year. Numerous studies have shown that graduates from engineering, business and mathematics programs earn considerably more than their counterparts from arts and humanities. These earnings disparities may reflect differences in skills that…

The U.S. faces increasing demand for STEM knowledge, contributing to enhanced products, improved health care, more efficient energy sources, a preserved environment, safeguarded national security, and economic growth. In addition, high-paying occupations increasingly require STEM knowledge, and in non-STEM occupations, workers increasingly need…

Optimization is a vital mathematical concept widely applied in various engineering fields. However, teaching this subject to engineering students often involves abstract materials, making it challenging for them to grasp. To address this issue, a group of five mathematics lecturers collaborated on designing a practical lesson on optimization for…

The demand for U.S. temporary workers has doubled since the 1990s, especially after the technology boom. American employers have benefited from hiring foreign talent for STEM occupations. Despite the mandatory prevailing wage regulations, temporary skilled immigrants have been criticized for their "willingness" to work for lower wages.…

This paper explores the associations between math-gender stereotypes and two dimensions of student engagement -- class engagement and disengagement -- among Russian engineering students. The data collected in three Russian universities (n = 2,074) were utilised. Structural equation modelling was employed to test hypotheses about relationships…

The problem of assigning students to teams can be described as maximising their profiles diversity within teams while minimising the differences among teams. This problem is commonly known as the maximally diverse grouping problem and it is usually formulated as maximising the sum of the pairwise distances among students within teams. We propose…

The outbreak of COVID-19 and the consequent lockdown took the world by surprise, forcing the trimming of the school curriculum and institutions of higher learning to urgently adopt online platforms to continue teaching and learning. This article is a case study that explores the use of a social media platform, WhatsApp, to improve peer learning…

In this paper, we describe our solution to predict student STEM career choices during the 2017 ASSISTments Datamining Competition. We built a machine learning system that automatically reformats the data set, generates new features and prunes redundant ones, and performs model and feature selection. We designed the system to automatically find a…