Asee peer logo

Work in Progress: Students’ Informal Reasoning when Approaching Classroom-based Scenarios Involving Diversity and Inclusion Issues

Download Paper |

Conference

2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Tampa, Florida

Publication Date

June 15, 2019

Start Date

June 15, 2019

End Date

June 19, 2019

Conference Session

ERM Technical Session 19: Thinking about the Engineering Curriculum

Tagged Division

Educational Research and Methods

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

8

DOI

10.18260/1-2--33651

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/33651

Download Count

396

Request a correction

Paper Authors

biography

Darby Rose Riley Rowan University

visit author page

Darby Riley is a student of mechanical engineering at Rowan University. She has a special interest in education, as well as issues of diversity and inclusion, both of which have pushed her to seek leadership positions wherever possible. She is a founding member of Rowan University's oSTEM chapter, and working to make Rowan's campus a safe and welcoming place for all students. Darby hopes to pursue a graduate's degree in engineering education or related fields of social and psychological sciences.

visit author page

biography

Joshua Bourne Reed Rowan University

visit author page

Josh Reed is a mechanical engineering student at Rowan University. He is the student government representative for the IEEE Women in Engineering Rowan Student branch and volunteers teaching engineering at local middle schools. He also holds a leadership position in the Bantivoglio Honors Concentration in the Honors College. Josh is very passionate about education as well as the social issues in both the engineering and education systems. He hopes to further his understanding in both of these fields.

visit author page

biography

Richard T. Cimino Rowan University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0003-4171-4133

visit author page

Dr. Richard T. Cimino is a Lecturer in the Experiential Engineering Education Department (ExEEd) at Rowan University. He received his Ph.D in Chemical & Biochemical Engineering from the Rutgers University, with a focus in adsorption science and the characterization of porous materials. His research interests include engineering ethics and broadening inclusivity in engineering, especially among the LGBTQ+ community. His funded research explores the effects of implicit bias on ethical decision making in the engineering classroom. Dr. Cimino has published papers and given presentations at national and international engineering conferences. He teaches Freshman and Sophomore Engineering Clinics at Rowan University.

visit author page

biography

Stephanie Farrell Rowan University

visit author page

Dr. Stephanie Farrell is Professor and Founding Chair of Experiential Engineering Education at Rowan University (USA). Prior to 2016 she was a faculty member in Chemical Engineering at Rowan for eighteen years. Dr. Farrell has contributed to engineering education through her work in inductive pedagogy, spatial skills, and inclusion and diversity. She has been honored by the American Society of Engineering Education with several teaching awards such as the 2004 National Outstanding Teaching Medal and the 2005 Quinn Award for experiential learning, and she was 2014-15 Fulbright Scholar in Engineering Education at Dublin Institute of Technology (Ireland)tephanie Farrell is Professor and Founding Chair of Experiential Engineering Education at Rowan University (USA) and was 2014-15 Fulbright Scholar in Engineering Education at Dublin Institute of Technology (Ireland).

visit author page

biography

Cheryl A. Bodnar Rowan University

visit author page

Cheryl A. Bodnar, Ph.D., CTDP is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Experiential Engineering Education at Rowan University. Dr. Bodnar’s research interests relate to the incorporation of active learning techniques in undergraduate classes as well as integration of innovation and entrepreneurship into the engineering curriculum. In particular, she is interested in the impact that these tools can have on student perception of the classroom environment, motivation and learning outcomes. She obtained her certification as a Training and Development Professional (CTDP) from the Canadian Society for Training and Development (CSTD) in 2010, providing her with a solid background in instructional design, facilitation and evaluation. She was selected to participate in the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Frontiers of Engineering Education Symposium in 2013 and awarded the American Society for Engineering Education Educational Research Methods Faculty Apprentice Award in 2014.

visit author page

Download Paper |

Abstract

This work-in-progress paper will analyze first year students’ informal reasoning when approaching classroom based scenarios related to diversity and inclusivity. Overall, there is limited understanding of how informal reasoning informs decision-making in the classroom, especially in an engineering-focused space where issues of diversity and inclusivity are not always emphasized. The process for reasoning through decisions, also known as the informal reasoning process, will be examined using the model put forth by Sadler and Zeidler.

In Fall 2018, a think aloud study was performed with 11 first-year engineering students representing all disciplines. This think aloud protocol had students read through 6 classroom based scenarios of an ethical nature which represent widespread issues of diversity and inclusivity in the classroom. The protocol questions were selected specifically to draw out Sadler and Zeidler’s three approaches to informal reasoning; rational, intuitive, and emotive. Student responses were transcribed by a third party and analyzed by the research team using two cycles of qualitative data coding. In the preparatory stages, the holistic coding method was used to identify larger themes in each individual response. Based on these emerging themes, researchers then shifted to a second coding approach, wherein keywords based upon Sadler and Zeidler’s informal reasoning theory were established as “provisional codes” to be pinpointed in the transcripts.

As this is an educationally-motivated research project, the results will hopefully be used to examine and enhance the classroom experience of engineering students. Furthermore, this data could be used to push the creation of explicitly social and ethical classroom content within the engineering curriculum. The work-in-progress paper will discuss the holistic and provisional coding results from one of the six scenarios and will provide an opportunity to get initial feedback on the study prior to further analysis.

Riley, D. R., & Reed, J. B., & Cimino, R. T., & Farrell, S., & Bodnar, C. A. (2019, June), Work in Progress: Students’ Informal Reasoning when Approaching Classroom-based Scenarios Involving Diversity and Inclusion Issues Paper presented at 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Tampa, Florida. 10.18260/1-2--33651

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: © 2019 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