Exploring Engineering Students’ Learning Experiences After Participating in a Mastery- and Project-Based Learning Intervention

Sophia Vicente; Sara A. Atwood; Kurt M Degoede; Rebecca Holcombe

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Conference: 2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Publication Date: June 22, 2025
Start Date: June 22, 2025
End Date: August 15, 2025
Conference Session: Cooperative and Experiential Education Division (CEED): Identity, Motivation & Belonging in Experiential Learning
Tagged Division: Cooperative and Experiential Education Division (CEED)
Page Count: 9
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--56505
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/56505
Download Count: 3

Paper Authors

biography

Sophia Vicente Elizabethtown College orcid.org/0000-0002-1670-0664

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Sophia Vicente (she/her) is currently a Postdoctoral Associate with Elizabethtown College and the Greenway Center for Equity and Sustainability. She has over 6 years of experience studying, teaching, and working alongside engineering students and faculty. Sophia is a former Science & Technology Policy Fellow at the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine and with this background, she is passionate about connecting research, practice, and policy. She holds a PhD in Engineering Education and MEng in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Virginia Tech as well as a BS in Industrial Engineering from Penn State.

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Sara A. Atwood Elizabethtown College

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Dr. Sara A. Atwood is the Dean of the School of Engineering and Computer Science and Professor of Engineering at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. She holds a BA and MS in Engineering Sciences from Dartmouth College, and PhD in Mecha

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Kurt M Degoede Elizabethtown College orcid.org/0000-0002-0118-4951

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Professor of Engineering and Physics, Elizabethtown College. His research interests in biomechanics include developing clinical instruments for rehabilitation. Dr. DeGoede teaches upper-level undergraduate mechanical engineering using a Mastery-Based assessment model and design courses and first-year multidisciplinary courses.

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Rebecca Holcombe

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Abstract

In the Fall of 2023, an engineering program hosted the first cohort of undergraduate engineering students in a hands-on, mastery-based semester-away program. In the first pilot of the program, four students spent an entire semester at the Vermont campus where they spent their days engaging in projects and mastery-based learning. The goal of the program was to introduce students to equity and sustainability topics through an innovative approach. This paper qualitatively explores students’ perspectives one year after participating in the hands-on, mastery-assessed, and project-based learning intervention. The research questions were as follows:

1. How do students describe returning to the “traditional classroom” in Spring of 2024 after their participation in the program? 2. How do students describe their summer internship experience in Summer 2024 after their participation in the program? 3. How did students perceive learning across their experiences?

To answer the three research questions, we leveraged qualitative research methods. Specifically, we conducted semi-structured interviews with three previous program participants and used thematic analysis to analyze semi-structured interviews with three engineering undergraduate students who participated in the program during the 2023 fall semester. From our preliminary analysis, we found that all of the former participants strongly felt that the program influenced their approach to their coursework in the semester following the program. Those who engaged in internships during the following summer felt that they were able to apply their learning at work. Furthermore, the participants demonstrated self-directed learning skills and stated that they felt an increased motivation in their subsequent coursework.

The findings from this study will inform future iterations of the program and have implications for engineering education practitioners. The participants interviewed felt that project-based and mastery-based assessment were effective practices that supported their learning which could be leveraged by other engineering programs and institutions. These findings align with prior research demonstrating the effectiveness of mastery-based and project-based learning in the engineering classroom. Future work will compare the perspectives of students who participated in the intervention with students who did not participate in the intervention and remained at the “home” campus to continue to explore the influence of project-based, mastery-assessed learning in engineering.

Citation
Format

Vicente, S., & Atwood, S. A., & Degoede, K. M., & Holcombe, R. (2025, June), Exploring Engineering Students’ Learning Experiences After Participating in a Mastery- and Project-Based Learning Intervention Paper presented at 2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Montreal, Quebec, Canada . 10.18260/1-2--56505

TY - CPAPER
AB - In the Fall of 2023, an engineering program hosted the first cohort of undergraduate engineering students in a hands-on, mastery-based semester-away program. In the first pilot of the program, four students spent an entire semester at the Vermont campus where they spent their days engaging in projects and mastery-based learning. The goal of the program was to introduce students to equity and sustainability topics through an innovative approach. This paper qualitatively explores students’ perspectives one year after participating in the hands-on, mastery-assessed, and project-based learning intervention. The research questions were as follows:

1. How do students describe returning to the “traditional classroom” in Spring of 2024 after their participation in the program?
2. How do students describe their summer internship experience in Summer 2024 after their participation in the program?
3. How did students perceive learning across their experiences?

To answer the three research questions, we leveraged qualitative research methods. Specifically, we conducted semi-structured interviews with three previous program participants and used thematic analysis to analyze semi-structured interviews with three engineering undergraduate students who participated in the program during the 2023 fall semester. From our preliminary analysis, we found that all of the former participants strongly felt that the program influenced their approach to their coursework in the semester following the program. Those who engaged in internships during the following summer felt that they were able to apply their learning at work. Furthermore, the participants demonstrated self-directed learning skills and stated that they felt an increased motivation in their subsequent coursework.

The findings from this study will inform future iterations of the program and have implications for engineering education practitioners. The participants interviewed felt that project-based and mastery-based assessment were effective practices that supported their learning which could be leveraged by other engineering programs and institutions. These findings align with prior research demonstrating the effectiveness of mastery-based and project-based learning in the engineering classroom. Future work will compare the perspectives of students who participated in the intervention with students who did not participate in the intervention and remained at the “home” campus to continue to explore the influence of project-based, mastery-assessed learning in engineering.
AU - Sophia Vicente
AU - Sara A. Atwood
AU - Kurt M Degoede
AU - Rebecca Holcombe
CY - Montreal, Quebec, Canada
DA - 2025/06/22
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Exploring Engineering Students’ Learning Experiences After Participating in a Mastery- and Project-Based Learning Intervention
UR - https://peer.asee.org/56505
DO - 10.18260/1-2--56505
ER -