While we all have our own circumstances and experiences, being able to empathize is critical to recognizing injustice and considering the viewpoints of others in the community. In the human-centric field of biomedical engineering (BME), empathy is imperative to creating inclusive devices or equipment that are equally accessible to all who need…

Various studies have shown the need for and importance of inclusion in an undergraduate student's campus experience, academic success and career development. The Biomedical Engineering (BME) Department organizes monthly department events, such as open house, internship and career workshops, Lunch and Learn with employers, and holiday parties.…

A major concern in science education is how to help students form science identity to increase their aspiration for STEM careers. Given the key role of experiences in individual's science identity formation, STEM experiences related to project-based learning (PBL) have received increasing attention in recent years. The purpose of this study was 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…

This article examined student experiences before and after an essay writing assignment that required the use of ChatGPT within an undergraduate engineering course. Utilizing a pre-post study design, we gathered data from 24 participants to evaluate ChatGPT's support for both completing and grading an essay assignment, exploring its educational…

Discussion of learner autonomy has often been led by educationalists and policy makers. How do learners interpret the notion? This question, as well as addressing how students' understandings compared to those of their instructors' were the questions that the research sought to answer. The research undertook to explore the notion of the autonomous…

This study explored relationships between hope, self-efficacy, and professional identity among a group of undergraduate engineering students at a western institution of higher education in the United States (US) over the span of an academic semester. We conducted a mixed-methods study with undergraduate engineering students to measure aspects of…

This study draws on basic psychological needs (BPN) theory to investigate multiple ways that perceived relatedness is important for understanding students' help-seeking behavior in college science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses. Participants were 590 undergraduates (38% women; 65% European American, 24% Asian/Pacific…

Contribution: A competency assessment framework that enables learning analytics for course monitoring and continuous improvement. Our work fills the gap in systematic methods for competency assessment in higher education. Background: Many institutions are shifting toward competency-based education (CBE), thus encouraging their educators to start…

The undeniable importance of reading in higher education prompted this investigation into the reading skills of a group often overlooked in previous research: master's level students studying in English-medium instruction (EMI) environments. Participants (148 master's-level students of engineering) completed the Nelson-Denny Reading Test (Form G),…

Background: Latinos/as/xs continue to face many barriers as they pursue engineering degrees, including remedial placement, lack of access to well-funded schools, and high poverty rates. We use the concept of "arrebatos" to describe the internal reckoning that Latino/a/x engineering students experience through their journeys, particularly…

Online formative quizzes have been shown to be an effective tool for improving students' academic achievement. This quasi-experimental study investigated the effects of students' engagement in online formative quizzes on academic achievement in an undergraduate engineering course, employing a one-group post-test research design. Participants (n =…

Although higher education institutions offer self-paced massive open online courses (MOOCs) on platforms like edX, little systematic effort has been made to examine their instructional design features. The purpose of this study was, therefore, to review self-paced MOOCs on edX and examine their instructional design features for those interested in…

Quantum information science and engineering (QISE) is a rapidly developing field that leverages the skills of experts from many disciplines to utilize the potential of quantum systems in a variety of applications. It requires talent from a wide variety of traditional fields, including physics, engineering, chemistry, and computer science, to name…

Below the surface of the ocean, currents, eddies, and other physical processes redistribute energy and biologically important elements. Measuring this transport can be challenging, and scientists must address a wide spectrum of oceanographic and engineering concepts when designing instruments to observe these processes. In this activity,…