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Assessing the Impact of Research Experiences on the Success of Underrepresented Community College Engineering Students

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Conference

2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Seattle, Washington

Publication Date

June 14, 2015

Start Date

June 14, 2015

End Date

June 17, 2015

ISBN

978-0-692-50180-1

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

Cultivating Engineering Scholarship and Research Mindsets Among URM Students

Tagged Division

Minorities in Engineering

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

15

Page Numbers

26.251.1 - 26.251.15

DOI

10.18260/p.23591

Permanent URL

https://strategy.asee.org/23591

Download Count

490

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Paper Authors

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Amelito G. Enriquez Canada College Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-1259-0680

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Amelito Enriquez is a professor of Engineering and Mathematics at Canada College in Redwood City, CA. He received a BS in Geodetic Engineering from the University of the Philippines, his MS in Geodetic Science from the Ohio State University, and his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Irvine. His research interests include technology-enhanced instruction and increasing the representation of female, minority and other underrepresented groups in mathematics, science and engineering.

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Wenshen Pong P.E. San Francisco State University

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Wenshen Pong received his Ph.D. in Structural Engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He joined the School of Engineering at San Francisco State University in 1998. He teaches courses in Civil/Structural Engineering.

Dr. Pong is a registered Professional Engineer in California. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Structural Engineers Association of California. He has published over fifty technical papers in the areas of Structural Control and Earthquake Engineering. Dr. Pong has been the Director of the School of Engineering at SFSU with 20 full-time faculty and over 25 part-time faculty since 2009.

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Hamid Shahnasser San Francisco State University

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Hamid Shahnasser received the B.E. degree in electrical engineering from McGill University, Montreal, MS degree in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University and his Ph.D. from Drexel University Pennsylvania.

He is currently a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at San Francisco State University and the Engineering graduate program coordinator. His areas of interest are communication networks and computer systems. Dr. Shahnasser has been a research faculty consultant to NASA Ames Research Center projects since 1990 and has collaborated on several research grants with that organization since then. He has received grants from NSA, Department of Education, National Science Foundation and various private companies carrying out research in the areas of his interest.

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Hamid Mahmoodi San Francisco State University

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Hamid Mahmoodi received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 1998 and the M.S. degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Tehran, Iran, in 2000. He received his Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, in 2005. He is currently an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering in the School of Engineering at San Francisco State University. His research interests include low-power, reliable, and high-performance circuit design for nano-scale technologies. He has many publications in journals and conferences and 5 U.S. patents. He was a recipient of the 2008 SRC Inventor Recognition Award, the 2006 IEEE Circuits and Systems Society VLSI Transactions Best Paper Award, 2005 SRC Technical Excellence Award, and the Best Paper Award of the 2004 International Conference on Computer Design. He is a technical program committee member of International Symposium on Low Power Electronics Design and International Symposium on Quality Electronics Design.

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Cheng Chen San Francisco State University

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Dr. Cheng Chen is currently an assistant professor in the school of engineering at San Francisco State University. His research interests include earthquake engineering, structural reliability and fire structural engineering.

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Xiaorong Zhang San Francisco State University

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Xiaorong Zhang received the B.S. degree in computer science from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China, in 2006, the M.S. and the Ph.D. degrees in computer engineering from University of Rhode Island, Kingston, in 2009 and 2013 respectively. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Engineering at San Francisco State University. Her research interests include embedded systems, wearable technologies, neural-machine interface, and cyber-physical systems.

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Kwok Siong Teh San Francisco State University

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Kwok Siong Teh received his B.S., M.S., Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and University of California at Berkeley in 1997, 2001, and 2004, respectively. He is currently an associate professor of mechanical engineering at San Francisco State University. His primary research interests are in the synthesis, characterization, and applications of metal oxides, conductive polymer, and low dimensional carbon nanostructures for energy generation and storage.

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Nicholas Langhoff Canada College

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Nick Rentsch is an adjunct professor of physics, engineering, and computer science at Cañada College, Skyline College, and San Francisco State University. He received his M.S. degree from San Francisco State University in embedded electrical engineering and computer systems. His technical interests include embedded control, electronic hardware design, analog audio electronics, digital audio signal processing, and sound synthesis and electronics for musical applications. His educational research interests include technology-enhanced instruction and the development of novel instructional equipment and curricula for enhancing academic success in science and engineering.

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Abstract

Assessing the Impact of Research Experiences on the Success of Underrepresented Community College Engineering StudentsAbstractXXXXXXXXXX, a Hispanic-Serving community college in California’s Silicon Valley attractsa large number of students from traditionally underrepresented groups in engineering. Althoughmany of these students enter with high levels of interest in engineering, their success andcompletion rates have been low due to a number of factors including low levels of preparationfor college-level work, especially in math; lack of awareness of academic and career options;lack of financial, academic, social and cultural capital needed for success; and lack of self-efficacy, i.e., students do not believe that they can succeed in engineering. To address thesebarriers to student success, XXXXXXXXXX developed and implemented a number of programsto keep students engaged and motivated towards achieving their academic goals. Among suchprograms is the Creating Opportunities for Minorities in Engineering, Technology, and Science(COMETS) program. Funded by a four-year grant from NASA through the CurriculumImprovements Partnership Award for the Integration of Research (CIPAIR) program, COMETSwas developed through a collaboration with YYYYYYYYYY – a large, comprehensive, urbanuniversity. The program aims to help students develop the skills they need for academic success,as well as provide exposure to the major fields of engineering in order to help solidify theirparticular areas of interest. Among the strategies developed through COMETS is a summerinternship program designed specifically for community college engineering students. During theten-week internship program, 16 freshmen and sophomore community college students aredivided in to four research groups based on their academic interests and academic preparations.Each group consists of four interns, one full-time intern (a student who has completed most ofthe courses needed for transfer) and three half-time interns, and is supervised by a universityfaculty adviser and a graduate student mentor.This paper presents the results of four years of implementation of the COMETS internshipprogram, including the outcomes of the research activities of the participants and their perceptionof their research experiences. The paper will also discuss the impact of the program onstrengthening students' identity as engineers and researchers; increasing student interest tofurther engage in research activities; and enhancing student self-efficacy for successfullytransferring to a four-year university, completing a baccalaureate degree in engineering, andpursuing a graduate degree. It will also highlight lessons learned and future plans for theprogram, as well as best practices that are useful to other institutions in developing similarprograms.

Enriquez, A. G., & Pong, W., & Shahnasser, H., & Mahmoodi, H., & Chen, C., & Zhang, X., & Teh, K. S., & Langhoff, N. (2015, June), Assessing the Impact of Research Experiences on the Success of Underrepresented Community College Engineering Students Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.23591

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