Asee peer logo

Building a Community of Mentors in Engineering Education Research Through Peer Review Training

Download Paper |

Conference

2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Minneapolis, MN

Publication Date

August 23, 2022

Start Date

June 26, 2022

End Date

June 29, 2022

Conference Session

NSF Grantees Poster Session

Page Count

16

DOI

10.18260/1-2--42028

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/42028

Download Count

284

Paper Authors

biography

Karin Jensen University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign

visit author page

Karin Jensen, Ph.D. is a Teaching Associate Professor in bioengineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include student mental health and wellness, engineering student career pathways, and engagement of engineering faculty in engineering education research. She was awarded a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation for her research on undergraduate mental health in engineering programs. Before joining UIUC she completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Sanofi Oncology in Cambridge, MA. She earned a bachelor’s degree in biological engineering from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of Virginia.

visit author page

biography

Lisa Benson Clemson University

visit author page

Lisa Benson is a Professor of Engineering and Science Education at Clemson University, and the Editor of the Journal of Engineering Education. Her research focuses on the interactions between student motivation and their learning experiences. Her projects include studies of student attitudes towards becoming engineers and scientists, and their development of problem solving skills, self-regulated learning practices, and beliefs about knowledge in their field. Dr. Benson is an American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Fellow, a member of the European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI), American Educational Research Association (AERA) and Tau Beta Pi, and the 2018 recipient of the Clemson University Class of ’39 Award for Faculty Excellence. She earned a B.S. in Bioengineering (1978) from the University of Vermont, and M.S. (1986) and Ph.D. (2002) in Bioengineering from Clemson University.

visit author page

biography

Kelsey Watts Clemson University

visit author page

Kelsey Watts is a fifth-year graduate student at Clemson University. She is part of the Engineering Education Research Peer Review Training (EER PERT) team. She has also developed Systems Biology education modules to enhance computational thinking skills in high school students.

visit author page

biography

Gary Lichtenstein Arizona State University

visit author page

Gary Lichtenstein, Ed.D. is founder and principal of Quality Evaluation Designs, a firm specializing in education research and evaluation. My intellectual interests include mixed-methods research, program development and evaluation, and engineering education persistence. My expertise includes program evaluation, research design, proposal development, logic models, IRB and communities of practice.

visit author page

biography

Evan Ko University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign

visit author page

Evan Ko is a recent graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a bachelors degree in Bioengineering and a minor in Material Science and Engineering. On campus, Evan actively participated as an Engineering Ambassador: encouraging younger students’ interest in STEM related fields while changing the definition and conversation of what it means to be an engineer. Evan is very excited to be a part of the engineering education community and hopes to spark the interest of EER within their peer groups and to return to education after industry experience.

visit author page

biography

Rebecca Bates Minnesota State University, Mankato

visit author page

Becky Bates received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Washington. She also received the M.T.S . degree from Harvard Divinity School. She is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Integrated Engineering at Minnesota State University, Mankato, home of the Iron Range and Twin Cities Engineering programs.

visit author page

Download Paper |

Abstract

Peer review of scholarship is critical to the advancement of knowledge in a scholarly discipline. Despite this, scholars receive little or no training in effective and constructive peer review. The process of peer review has been routinely criticized in higher education for lack of quality reviews and reviewers, and reviews that are personal and not constructive. As a discipline, engineering education research (EER) benefits from diverse disciplinary backgrounds and perspectives of scholars, and as such relies on peer review of scholarship to generate, interpret, and translate knowledge. Supported by funding through the National Science Foundation, this project is developing, implementing, and assessing a project that conducts training in EER peer review for journal articles and grant proposals. This paper describes the Engineering Education Research Peer Review Training (EER PERT) project, which is designed to develop EER scholars’ peer review skills through mentored reviewing experiences. The overall goals of the EER PERT project are twofold: to establish, assess and evaluate a mentored reviewer program for 1) EER journal manuscripts and 2) EER grant proposals. In the first year of the project, two cohorts have participated in the mentored EER journal manuscript program through partnership with the Journal of Engineering Education (JEE), where triads (two mentees and one mentor) work collaboratively to review three manuscripts. Triads work with coaches informally to provide feedback on their experience and discuss manuscripts they are reviewing. Across the two cohorts, 42 mentees have collaborated with 18 mentors and 3 coaches, with some mentors and coaches participating in both cohorts. Project evaluation activities for the mentored manuscript review program included focus groups and exit surveys with both mentees and mentors in the first cohort. The main findings from the evaluation of the first cohort included the following themes: 1) the program provided valuable training and increased participant’s confidence in conducting EER scholarship, 2) the program fostered a sense of community and inclusion, particularly for those without EER backgrounds and from outside the US, and 3) program logistics could create barriers for participants, including working across time zones and tracking triad progress. Two main changes were implemented for the second cohort, including 1) a program dashboard for teams to track progress and organize update form submissions and 2) an optional monthly discussion meeting to supplement initial program orientation and triad meetings. The monthly discussions are intended to provide additional training in peer review topics and develop community among participants through networking opportunities. Planned discussion topics include updated JEE Author Guidelines and Review Criteria, inclusive language in scholarly publications, anti-racism in peer review, getting involved with the EER community, and roles and processes within the JEE Editorial Board. Program evaluation of the mentored manuscript review program is being leveraged to develop a mentored grant proposal review program wherein participants will work with former NSF program officers to review six grant proposals and participate in a mock review panel. This paper will present an overview of the journal manuscript and proposal mentored reviewer programs and findings from program evaluation.

Jensen, K., & Benson, L., & Watts, K., & Lichtenstein, G., & Ko, E., & Bates, R. (2022, August), Building a Community of Mentors in Engineering Education Research Through Peer Review Training Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--42028

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2022 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015