retention inengineering the above samples suggests retention rates, a critical metric in assessing theeffectiveness of educational programs, vary when reflecting each institution’s unique curricula,challenges, data collection methods, and statistical processes.Many US mechanical engineering programs implement innovative pedagogies to engage theirfirst-year students. US Coast Guard Academy introduced cyber-physical system design andrealization by integrating a Bilge Pump design project. The first-year students were exposed tovarious engineering skills, including SolidWorks, machining, sheet metal work, 3-D printing,and programming using Arduino to build and test pumps [5]. Virginia Military Instituteimplemented a nine-week Arduino-controlled Potato
in characterizing graduate-level attrition, persistence, and career trajectories; engineering writing and communication; and methodological development. ©American Society for Engineering Education, 2023 Work in Progress: Toward a Holistic Understanding of Engineering Student Success in Mechanical Engineering across Educational StagesAbstract: This WIP paper will present our results to date in conducting a multimethod single casestudy, which is appropriate for deeply understanding multiple stakeholder perspectives within abounded environment, in our case, the Department of Mechanical Engineering at PennsylvaniaState University. The in-progress goal of our team in Mechanical Engineering at
engineering may be presented to 1st-year students and how careerplanning might be better positioned for future engineers.BackgroundThe South Dakota School of Mines and Technology is a public engineering-focused university inRapid City, South Dakota. One of the largest engineering undergraduate programs at SouthDakota Mines is mechanical engineering (ME). According to the ME department, theundergraduate program “offers a premier project-based engineering design curriculum andprovides [the] graduates with superior educational experience through teaching and learning,research and development, and service & social responsibility” [1].Many engineering students are attracted to the automotive industry due to its continuedexcellence in innovation. The
research and experiences in the Mechanical Engineering Department atOhio University’s Russ College of Engineering and Technology that identified‘professionalizing’ engineering education as an approach worth further investigation tosignificantly change the learning and professional development of engineering students. Ourapproach, which has been branded Pro-op education, involves prioritizing (and leading with)development of Professional Attitudes, Behaviors and Competencies (Pro-ABCs) as foundationalskills, and interweaving traditional coursework with small but significant professionalexperiences designed to emphasize aspects of the U.S Department of Labor’s engineeringcompetency model (primarily personal and workplace effectiveness). The
Facility and a McCormick Teaching Excellence Institute Research Fellow. Her research focuses on how identity, among other affective factors, influences diverse groups of students to choose engineering and persist in engineering. She also studies how different experiences within the practice and culture of engineering foster or hinder belonging, motivation, and identity development. Dr. Godwin graduated from Clemson University with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Ph.D. in Engineering and Science Education. Her research earned her a National Science Foundation CAREER Award focused on characterizing latent diversity, which includes diverse attitudes, mindsets, and approaches to learning to understand engineering
engineering education research, which most recently has focused on incorporating authentic engineering educational experiences through engineering history education and open-ended modeling problems designed to initiate the productive beginnings of engineering judgement and engineering identity. ©American Society for Engineering Education, 2025 Perceptions of Undergraduate Mechanical Engineering Students Regarding the True Nature of Engineering PracticeIntroduction Historical data suggests that only about one in two students initially enrolled in anengineering program at an institution of higher learning will finish that degree program withinfour to six years [1]. For most engineering
motivationStudent perceptions on what engineering is, what engineers do, and what the different fieldswithin engineering are matter because they may impact undergraduates’ initial decisions to majorin engineering, their desire to remain in engineering throughout their undergraduate career, andtheir decisions to pursue engineering as a career after graduation. Developing a betterunderstanding of student perceptions of engineering, and more specifically, mechanicalengineering can help educators highlight key aspects of engineering that students are not awareof and aspects that may be misunderstood, which may help broaden interest in the field ofengineering.Additionally, student perceptions on what engineering is likely change over time based oncoursework and
autograders in computer science and other engineeringdisciplines. In computer science, the focus of the autograders is on code correctness, quality, andefficiency. In other engineering disciplines, the primary focus is to reinforce course concepts anddevelop modeling skills with code quality being a secondary concern [2]. The problems developed in the platform can be set up so that students have multipleattempts to correctly solve the problem. In addition, problems can also be scaffolded so thatstudents receive instantaneous feedback on intermediate stages of a complex problem. These twofeatures in conjunction create a permission structure for students to learn through failure withoutworrying about negative impacts on their grade. The
Paper ID #40032Measuring the Impact of Extra-/Co-Curricular Participation onProfessional Formation of EngineersDr. Aimee Monique Cloutier, Rose-Hulman Institute of TechnologyDr. Holly M. Matusovich, Virginia Tech Dr. Holly Matusovich is the Associate Dean for Graduate and Professional Studies in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech and a Professor in the Department of Engineering Education where she has also served in key leadership positions. Dr. Matusovich is recognized for her research and leadership related to graduate student mentoring and faculty development. She won the Hokie Supervisor Spotlight Award in
skillsdeveloped during the mechanical engineering program. In the case of the Exo-Arm project, thepresentation at the Capstone Design Showcase hosted by the University has led to intensediscussions and interest from different stakeholders in engineering education: sophomore andjunior students, faculty, program administrators, industry advisers.Faculty arguing the opportunity to develop a program in robotics can make a strong example ofthis project and propose the adoption of more applied formal and informal education avenues(modify current coursework, introduce elective coursework, organize student club activities)dedicated to maintaining and enhance the education in key aspects of robotics (theory ofmechanisms, theory of control, theory of dynamic