Assessing Happiness in Undergraduate Engineering Students

This research Work in Progress explores establishing a baseline for a measure of 'happiness' as a noncognitive construct, and how it might change over the school year for engineering students, and begins to explore how it may relate to other noncognitive attributes.Affective characteristics of engineering students have been studied in different contexts. Studies have attempted to assess the effect of affective and cognitive characteristics on retention, success, motivation, etc. Little if any research has been done on happiness of engineering students as an affective construct, or a trajectory of happiness within engineering cohorts.This work-in-progress builds upon prior research at a large, mid-Atlantic university. As the COVID pandemic began, multidisciplinary engineering students were given an open-ended prompt to submit an artifact that illustrated how the pandemic was affecting them. There were no restrictions, other than the assignment had to be capable of being submitted in the existing learning management system. Students submitted a wide variety of creative artifacts, from poems to movies to paintings. These submissions were analyzed based on the type of submission and emotion mentioned or conveyed in the assignments. Submissions were coded to glean characteristics such as happiness, sadness, and other emotions from the students' submissions.This was created in a snapshot in time, within the first few weeks of COVID and before the effects of COVID on students or society was evident. The COVID-19 pandemic had undoubtedly impacted any measure of happiness among engineering undergraduates (which was the impetus of the project). From this initial study, two research questions emerged: a) what is the happiness level of engineering students as they begin the academic year, and b) what is the trajectory over the course of the year? For further consideration, does a quantitative measure of happiness correlate to fixed vs. growth mindset? The Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS) was administered at the beginning of the academic year, at the end of the first semester, and at the end of the year at a small, private, Midwest university. This study hopes to establish a baseline to understand how interventions might be designed to positively affect happiness within students. This paper will discuss the initial results of administering the SHS to undergraduate engineering students, with a comparison to results from a similar instrument measuring fixed vs. growth mindset. © 2022 IEEE.

A High School Fngineering Curriculum Focusing on Discovery, Design, Professional Skills and Society

The Engineering 4 Us All (e4usa) curriculum was designed to introduce engineering to students who had little or no understanding of engineering;the design is meant to be inclusive and to engage in an examination and exploration of 'engineering'. The intent is to emphasize the idea of being able to think like an engineer in any chosen profession, rather than simply to develop more engineers or to teach engineering skills. The focus is not on 'how to become an engineer' but 'what is engineering' and 'who is an engineer', including engineering design, ethics, communication, societal implications, and the concepts of engineering as problem solving and embracing failure as a learning opportunity. This paper describes the e4usa curriculum and discusses the focus, uniquely designed to democratize and diversity engineering. It will discuss, in particular, the emphasis on discovery of engineering, its relationship to societal considerations, and incorporation of elements such as ethics in engineering design, and development of an engineering identity. This paper addresses the following research questions regarding the course and associated professional development: center dot How does the e4usa course differ from other precollege engineering curricula? center dot How did the pilot year e4usa teachers adapt and deliver the curriculum during the COVID-I9 disruption? center dot What effect did COV7D-19 have on the potential effectiveness of the professional development? Methods include interviews with teachers prior to and after professional development sessions, a series of focus groups with teachers, and examination of teacher reflections, utilizing Situated Learning Theory as a lens. Teachers indicated that the professional development opportunity was very successful. Preliminary data showed that teachers expressed issues with adaptations, student motivation, digital equity, successes, and teacher future plans due to COVID. Allowing them to experience the course from the viewpoint of the student led to feelings of empathy. It was clear that teachers' limited experience in online delivery and dwindling attendance were significant factors. This paper will be of interest to anyone interested in developing or implementing an existing K-12 engineering-focused curriculum. In addition, programs utilizing an unconventional approach, as this program explored a previously unexplored area, can gain insight into potential challenges and successes of this type of model deviating from a more typical traditional approach.

Looking Ahead: From Driving Cars in The Lobby to Online: Using Open Creative Expression to Understand Student Emotions About Transitioning to Remote Instruction During the COVID-19 Crisis

In response to COVID-19, students in a first-year general engineering program rapidly transitioned from a highly interactive, hands-on model with large remote-controlled cars in the lobby to an asynchronous, online model without face-to-face student interaction. The instructors designed an assignment to encourage students to creatively express how the course interruption and transition online was affecting them. The assignment encouraged complete freedom of expression and choice of media. The intent was to keep a personal connection with students and to create a feedback opportunity to make up for the lost in-person informal connections and observations. The instructor of each section viewed submissions, and offered encouraging, individual feedback on each. Afterwards, instructors developed and applied a coding system for applicable media and moods to help understand overall student response. The instructors were left with the perception that the responses were very powerful, and successful at strengthening the recently weakened student-instructor bond. We found the assignment gave students a chance to express themselves more creatively than assignments such as reports. This paper will introduce the assignment and give an overview of student submissions. We believe similar assignments could be useful in any course where the instructor has an interest in the well-being of their students, and we ourselves plan to use this style of assignment to explore topics including students’ desire to continue to pursue engineering, or comfort level during their first year of college. © 2021,Advances in Engineering Education.All Rights Reserved

Effect of COVID on a High School Engineering Curriculum (Work in Progress)

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted education on all fronts with no warning. While universities largely adapted by moving lectures from in-person to online, the response from the K-12 community was not as straightforward. Existing issues of equity, access, and inclusion required school districts, schools, and teachers to adopt a variety of untested solutions, including online instruction, canceled classes, and shipping materials/supplies to students at home. The pilot year of a project meant to introduce engineering to K-12 students, e4usa was largely running as anticipated when the COVID disruption derailed the pilot cohort of teachers. This unexpected transition provides a unique opportunity to understand changes that were made and the drivers for those changes, especially when implementing a new and innovative engineering curriculum. We know that high schools adapted quickly. This work-in-progress discusses initial findings from teacher interviews on their experience during this unforeseen and unique transition. Teacher interviews were analyzed to examine the impact of the COVID-19 disruption from the perspective of a teacher new to an engineering curriculum. Specifically, we will begin to examine the following research question: How did the pilot year e4usa teachers adapt and deliver the curriculum during the COVID-19 disruption? We explored teacher delivery of the e4usa curriculum through a variety of levels to capture the drivers that prompted decisions, identify pedagogical adjustments, and identify drivers behind the chosen changes. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021