University-level transdisciplinary initiatives have become prevalent as institutions reorient disciplines around complex problems that are relevant to society. Transdisciplinary research initiatives, like those of interdisciplinarity in the previous decade, are reinforced by federal funding agencies because of their potential to yield technological innovation, and in turn, economic growth. However, the sustained development of transdisciplinary or interdisciplinary curriculum design remains limited due to the multiple competing factors that govern the curriculum. This dissertation research focuses on the implementation of the transdisciplinary initiative as it pertains to interdisciplinary curriculum design. I use public institutional documents to trace the transdisciplinary institutional initiative as it is enacted at different university levels and interviews to understand the initiatives in practice, drawing from administrators, faculty, and staff experiences as they develop interdisciplinary courses. Many university-level initiatives that purport transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary education fall short in their implementation because of academic structures that directly or indirectly inhibit sustainable interdisciplinary curricula. Instead, administrative organizations like the Registrar's Office, Office of Integrated General Education, and Transdisciplinary Initiative Office develop networks and artifacts that connect faculty who have experience bypassing academic structures with faculty who seek out these forms of institutional support. These emergent practices are an adaptation to the university system rather than a proactive measure that facilitates the large-scale structural change claimed by university-level transdisciplinary initiatives. This study contributes to the understanding of potential long-term implications through the examination of interrelated university initiatives as they exist through metrics and incentives provided by the upper administration and experiences of faculty and staff in developing interdisciplinary courses. / Doctor of Philosophy / There is a trend in universities across the United States of implementing initiatives that incentivize departments to focus their research and teaching on complex problems that span different disciplines. These initiatives are attractive to potential university donors due to their perceived societal relevance and reinforced by external funding agencies because of their potential to yield technological innovation. These initiatives can be short-lived, however, as they seek to disrupt the traditional university structure. The purpose of this study is to examine how faculty and staff translate and negotiate the complex university structures and initiatives as they design interdisciplinary courses. I use public institutional documents to trace the transdisciplinary institutional initiative as it is enacted at different university levels and interviews to understand the initiatives in practice, drawing from administrators, faculty, and staff experiences as they develop interdisciplinary courses. The findings show that even for faculty and staff working to create interdisciplinary classes in alignment with these initiatives, they are faced with challenges as the initiatives are limited in their structural reorientation. Instead, mid-tier administrative organizations have developed networks and artifacts that connect those who have experience bypassing academic structures with those who express interest in following their lead. This study includes a discussion of broader socio-political and economic factors that contextualizes layers of faculty and staff experiences, administrator perspectives, and the university's public messaging through the historical legacies of academia, the economy, and society at large.

This dissertation examines the culture and climate of disabled people and the disability community within society and the engineering field and the experience of disabled students in higher education. The theoretical lenses utilized is the Technology Acceptance Model which emphasizes the importance of end user's perspectives, and the Social Model of Disability which sees the world and society as disabling rather than the imposition of disability on a person. The perception of disability in engineering is examined through the use of a systematic literature review within Chapter 3 by comparing general engineering academic literature and engineering education literature housed within the American Society of Engineering Education national database. Chapter 4 of this dissertation quantitatively examines the digital accessibility landscape of learning management systems utilized within engineering and engineering related courses that first and second year engineering students are required to take. Finally, Chapter 5 utilized a mixed method approach to examine disabled and non-disabled engineering students' perspectives on the usability of their Learning Management System within their engineering courses. The second part of this research study utilizes individual design interviews to have students redesign their Canvas experiences such that it minimizes digital accessibility barriers. Chapter 6 details tangible digital accessibility recommendations for developers, designers, and instructors/content managers. These recommendations are based on the results within the previous chapters of this dissertation. / Doctor of Philosophy / This dissertation examines the culture and climate of disabled people and the disability community within society and the engineering field and the experience of disabled students in higher education. The research presented is understood by looking at disability as not a detriment to the individual and is imposed by society. Chapter 3 talks about how disabled people are and are not included within the engineering field. It compares a more general engineering academic literature with engineering education academic literature from American Society of Engineering Education national proceedings. The second study researches the accessibility of engineering and engineering related course websites from a higher education institution. This research shows the most common digital accessibility errors that are found along with the types of web pages that have the most accessibility errors. Finally, the third study researches the digital accessibility barriers encountered by disabled and nondisabled engineering students. These results are broken down by the specific disability that was disclosed by the participant. Chapter 6 details tangible digital accessibility recommendations for developers, designers, and instructors/content managers. These recommendations are based on the results within the previous chapters of this dissertation.

International service learning (ISL) has been integrated into engineering education and has become increasingly more popular in co-curricular experiences. While prior research investigates each of these avenues of ISL, we have not investigated how these experiences compare to one another in terms of student learning outcomes or understood these experiences from a national perspective. The purpose of this thesis is to address these gaps in existing literature and to provide a comprehensive, holistic perspective of ISL experiences ability to impact student learning on a national scale. To better understand student learning outcomes in engineering ethics, agency and identity and draw comparisons in student career choices, several survey instruments were used within a nationally-representative survey distributed to engineering seniors (n=1911) at four-year universities within the United States. Descriptive statistics were used to categorize he responses by type of ISL experience: capstone, work, or co-curricular. The survey instruments were used to measure the individual learning outcomes: engineering ethics contained 5 items, engineering identity contained 14 items, and engineering agency contained 12 original items. Each survey instrument was validated using an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to determine the relevant factor groups for each construct. An ANOVA test or Kruskal Wallis, the non-parametric equivalent test, was used for each dataset depending on normal distribution of the data. Responses in engineering ethics showed a significantly higher score in students’ ethics understanding with ISL capstone (p< 0.001) and work experience (p<0.0001) and a medium effect size for both (Cohen’s d=0.3). Responses in engineering agency scores showed a significant difference with ISL capstone (p<0.05) and co-curricular experience (p<0.05) with a medium effect size (Cohen’s d=0.3). Additionally, responses to predicted career choice post-graduation showed a lower percentage of students anticipating leaving engineering from the 9% population rate to 6% for those with ISL capstone experience and 5% for those with ISL co-curricular experience. These results give reason to consider more frequent incorporation of ISL projects into engineering courses such as senior capstone design. / Master of Science / International service learning (ISL) is a way of learning that allows students to use their engineering skills to help others, while gaining experience in a global context. ISL projects allow students to interact with people around the world, gaining experience with cultural and social diversity while using and developing their engineering skills. ISL projects take many forms and have been used within engineering education in many ways. The three most common ISL experiences are integration into capstone courses, independent ISL work experience, and co-curricular programs such as Engineers Without Borders. Prior research has focused mainly on capstone and co-curricular ISL experiences. Research found ISL experiences beneficial for student learning, however prior research has not investigated how these experiences compare. Additionally, many studies are conducted within courses or programs which provides a limited general understanding. This study aims to provide more clarity between student learning by ISL experiences and provide a national perspective on the impacts of ISL experiences. The purpose of this study was to determine how effective ISL experiences are in improving student learning in engineering ethics, agency, identity, and retaining engineering students in the field after graduation. A survey with a total of 31 questions related to these topics (5 for engineering ethics, 12 for engineering agency and 14 for engineering identity) was nationally distributed to senior engineering students enrolled at four-year universities in the United States. The responses were categorized by student’s ISL experience (capstone, work, and co-curricular) and compared for each engineering topic. The data was analyzed statistically, and the survey questions were analyzed to ensure that they were measuring student learning as expected. The results showed that ISL capstone projects improved students’ understanding of engineering ethics, increased their sense of engineering agency, and led to a lower percentage of students who planned to leave the field of engineering after graduation. ISL work experiences improved ethics understanding for students but had little to no impact on engineering agency. Finally, ISL co-curricular experiences had little impact on engineering ethics understanding, but improved student’s engineering agency beliefs and led to a less students leaving the field. These results give reasons to consider integrating ISL experiences into engineering education more frequently to provide benefits to students.

National calls for improving the prospects of STEM workforce development and broadening participation in STEM place the focus of change within the education system. Despite many efforts towards integrating STEM, and specifically engineering, into pre-college settings, mechanisms for change in schools towards these goals remain underdeveloped. While collaborative solutions involving multiple organizations across sectors towards addressing this complex problem appear promising, more work is needed to develop a critical understanding of the processes involved when such different organizations come together to collaborate towards a social goal. Based in an effort to bring more theoretical literature into the discourse around school-university-industry partnership, the purpose of this research is to contribute to a better understanding of how K-12 STEM interorganizational relationships develop in their initial stages by focusing on the collaborative processes and structures and to develop implications for future success of such collaborations. To accomplish this, I used a multiple case study design to investigate the collaborative processes that emerged in the first year of the partnership within VT PEERS (Virginia Tech Partnering with Educators and Engineers in Rural Schools). I centered my analysis on select adult stakeholders in the collaborative problem who were also programmatic participants including teachers, administrators, industry partners, and university affiliates. Using pre-year and post-year semi-structured interviews with these stakeholders, I characterized the collaborative processes in the first year of the program. Interpretation of results comparing across cases indicated considerations for education and organizational theory literature as well as implications for collaborative practice. Findings confirmed the emergent and negotiated nature of interorganizational collaboration and highlighted the importance of managing communication and reflection in partnership. Organizational culture may impact capacity building when organizations come together towards a complex social goal, particularly when industry is involved, and autonomy and operational issues within the school system and teaching can make collaborating with schools particularly challenging. When organizations come together towards a social goal centered around one of the collaborative partners, equality in exchange may not be a good measure of success. With the caveat that communication needs to be well managed to build credibility among partners, an unequal but equitable exchange of resources may be appropriate in collaborations towards a social goal. While it is tempting to continue to measure quality in interorganizational collaborations narrowly by the outcomes produced, a macro-level look at the collaborative processes involved enables collaborative stakeholders to be intentional about designing for future success. / Doctor of Philosophy / National calls for a higher number and greater diversity of STEM professionals place the burden of change on school systems. Despite some successful efforts, there still remains significant challenges to making change in schools. Partnerships between private companies, universities, and school systems appear promising, but current work is limited in its conclusions. There is a need to reflect more critically on the process of how organizations build relationships in addressing social goals if we are to gain a better understanding of how to make these partnerships successful. To address this, I conducted pre-year and post-year interviews with teachers, administrators, industry partners, and university affiliates during the first year of VT PEERS (Virginia Tech Partnering with Educators and Engineers in Rural Schools). Because the project took place in three different rural school counties, I looked for similarities and differences across the collaborations in each county to build a broader understanding and develop implications for other partnerships. Findings from this study led to several important takeaways about collaborating across organizations towards goals in K-12 STEM. First, collaboration is a process and initial plans will change and develop over time. Reflecting on this and keeping open communication through changes potentially equips collaborators to better weather the ups and downs of partnership. Second, the nature and flexibility of an organization’s work environment impacts how much tension they feel between getting their everyday work done and contributing to the collaboration. Third, unequal costs and benefits may be acceptable in a collaboration as long as collaborators are in agreement on the balance. Again, communication is important to build trust and understanding among partners for a healthy balance to be achieved. Overall, taking a birds-eye view of collaborative processes allows collaborators to be more intentional about designing for future success.

Engineering undergraduate students have opinions and perceptions of engineering disciplines and engineering undergraduate students do not always matriculate and graduate in precisely the same discipline. Understanding how these two characteristics of engineering undergraduate students interact to inform behaviors is important for engineering educators and administrators to increase and improve recruitment and retention among their students. This dissertation approached each characteristic of engineering students, first separately and then together. A nationwide survey of undergraduate engineering students found significant differences in how students perceive various engineering disciplines along several paired-term anchored scales. These differences were equally significant when scores were considered in terms of discipline-membership. Membership was found to lead to higher scores for Difficulty and Friendliness compared to scores of non-members for any given specific discipline. Using historical data, transfer paths of students into, out of, or within engineering were identified by frequency of occurrence as either the origin of a transfer or the destination of a transfer. Industrial Engineering was found to be considerably more frequently experienced as a destination of transfers, regardless of whether the origin degree program was another engineering discipline or from outside of engineering. Conversely, Aerospace Engineering was considerably more frequently experienced as an origin of transfers. Additionally, the transfer path relationship between Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering was investigated. Combining these two characteristics of engineering students—that of having opinions of engineering disciplines and that of having the potential to transfer between degree programs— an ethnographic research methodology was implemented. Factors unrelated to grade performance were identified as common program-change instigators, including personal interest considerations and predicted career opportunities. Ultimately, this dissertation contributes to an understanding of how perceptions of engineering disciplines and degree program transfer behavior affects undergraduate engineering student experiences.

Yes / The introduction in the early 1990s of the world wide web was a significant factor in the creation of a global information society, allowing new possibilities to work, entertain and communicate, from home, at the workplace or on the move. In recent years, there have been significant advances in information technology (IT), while a new generation of applications that are able to harness the power of the world wide web has been introduced under the banner of Web 2.0. The increased capabilities of IT and the nature of Web 2.0 applications have attracted interest from the academic community as a means of enhancing the delivery of higher education. This paper considers the implications of introducing technology into the higher education sector from the perspectives of academic staff and students, with particular emphasis on the use of technology and Web 2.0 applications, and the relationship between technology and teaching and learning.

Universities across the United States have integrated international experiences into their engineering students' education. International engineering programs provide learning and professional opportunities for participating faculty and students while aiding international partners in their own efforts. These programs are unique from traditional engineering courses and projects and generate outcomes desired for engineers entering the workforce including professional skills, critical thinking skills, and a strong understanding of their target audiences. While individual programs have explored the impacts of their programs on their students and their resulting project outcomes, there are significant gaps when considering the following: 1) how are programs structured, 2) what are the intended learning outcomes, 3) why do faculty participate in these programs, 4) how are relationships formed and maintained with international partners, and 5) what barriers exist that limit international engineering programs? To address these gaps, I interviewed 25 program faculty and 40 students. Through qualitative analysis of these interviews, I found that programs shared a common consideration for the program's focus on student learning or achieving international partner goals. Programs approached both structure and learning outcomes with either more emphasis on one or the other; balancing these two goals was a challenge for most programs. Faculty were motivated to participate in international engineering programs by their own intrinsic values, however, many felt limited when in traditional tenure track positions. Students tended to reflect more deeply and from a systems perspective the more exposure and time in a program. Students who engaged in either multiple programs or longer participation within a program tended to reflect their experiences contributed more to their current and future career plans. Partners were typically developed initially through personal relationships of the faculty members or through third-party organizations that specialize in international work. Maintaining relationships was highly varied between programs, but a common deficit among programs was the ability to evaluate project outcomes with partners in a numerical way. The examination of these questions about international engineering programs provides a foundation of knowledge for future programs to build on and for existing programs to compare their approaches. This is a critical step to implementing these types of programs in a more widespread and intentional way. / Doctor of Philosophy / Universities across the United States have added international experiences into their engineering students' education. International engineering programs provide learning and professional opportunities for participating faculty and students while aiding international partners in their own efforts. These programs are unique from traditional engineering courses and projects and help students learn professional skills, critical thinking skills, and a strong understanding of their target audiences to prepare them for jobs. While individual programs have explored the impacts of their programs on their students and their resulting project outcomes, we don't know the following: 1) how are programs structured, 2) what are the intended learning outcomes, 3) why do faculty participate in these programs, 4) how are relationships formed and maintained with international partners, and 5) what barriers exist that limit international engineering programs? To answer these questions, I interviewed 25 program faculty and 40 students. I transcribed and used qualitative coding to analyze the data from faculty and students. Through these interviews, I found that programs shared a common consideration for the program's focus on student learning or achieving international partner goals. Each primary focus leverages different aspects of program design, learning, and participation outcomes to achieve those goals. Faculty were motivated to participate in international engineering programs by their own personal and moral values, however many felt limited when they held traditional tenure track positions. Students tended to reflect more deeply and from a systems perspective the more exposure that they had to a program in terms of length. While participation one time led to valuable learning and reflected learning, those that engaged in either multiple programs or longer programs tended to consider more components of their experiences as it affected their current and future plans. Partners were typically developed initially through personal relationships of the faculty members or through third party organizations who specialize in international work. Maintaining relationships was highly varied between programs, but a common deficit among programs was the ability to evaluate project outcomes with partners in a numerical way. These answers help future programs to strategically build programs and helps existing programs compare their program to others.

The duration of exile in refugee communities has grown immensely over the last two decades. Recent humanitarian reports have called for actors to create more coordinated global support for the refugee crises. In these recent calls, the desire to break a cycle of dependency between the refugee community and international aid has been a clear priority. Hence, education has emerged as a strategic action to foster refugee self-reliance, particularly higher education (HE) and technical and vocational education and training (TVET). There are many opportunities to use HE and TVET to benefit the refugee community, including: developing solutions to improve living conditions, enabling new opportunities for learning pathways, allowing refugees to contribute to the economy in hosting countries, or preparing them to rebuild their lives once they return to their home countries. However, the economic, political, and cultural complexities of refugee communities often add layers of challenges to typical formal HE and TVET programs. In addition, the existing literature in refugee education still lacks a coherent analysis of these factors and conditions for adoption of HE and TVET programs, especially for refugees living in camps. <div>To address these gaps, this dissertation presents three studies that investigate an undergraduate introductory engineering course for refugees called Localized Engineering in Displacement (LED). Specifically, I draw on effective learning and policy frameworks to understand how to situate engineering education across HE and TVET and advance LED in refugee camps. The first study presents a case study examining the iterative processes of creation and implementation of the LED course in the Azraq refugee camp in Jordan. As a general outcome of my study, I describe the novel approach to teaching engineering design for learners in the Azraq refugee camp and its applications to other contexts. The second study examines the LED course implemented in the Kakuma refugee camp. The Kakuma refugee camp is situated in Kenya and considered the largest refugee camp in the world, thus providing a different context of refugee camps. I discuss the contextual challenges to transfer, develop, and implement to a new context and present the course outcomes and experiences based on the course participants’ reflections. The third study extends findings from the first and second studies by using a comparative case study to critically examine the development process and challenges of engineering education in refugee camps. Central to my analysis is the connection between the challenges identified in both camps and existing actors involved with refugee education. </div><div>My research uses two case studies to underscore the complexity of the LED course development in the Azraq and Kakuma camps. I seek to foster a debate about the challenges that influence the development of higher engineering education programs in refugee camps and how different actors can collaborate to advance high-quality engineering education initiatives in refugee contexts. Overall, this dissertation clarifies some of the biggest challenges to implement engineering education in refugee settings, how different actors can collaborate to mitigate these challenges, and how these findings expose the misalignment between the international rhetoric and reality on the ground in refugee camps.</div>

This thesis focuses on a year-long project of implementing active learning in undergraduate dynamics courses at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo from 2012-2013. The purpose is to increase conceptual understanding of critical dynamics concepts and to repair misconceptions of the students. Conceptual understanding in Dynamics is vital to understanding the big picture, building upon previous knowledge, and better understanding the behavior of engineering systems. Through various hands-on activities, students make predictions, test their conceptions, and solve real world problems. These active learning methods allow students to improve their learning of Dynamics concepts. Education research on active learning is present in Physics and Mathematics disciplines, yet is still growing in Engineering. Four Inquiry-Based Learning Activities (IBLAs) and two Model-Eliciting Activities (MEAs) are discussed in this thesis. Inquiry-Based Learning Activities feature student prediction and experimentation in which the physical world acts as the authority. On the other hand, Model-Eliciting-Activities prompt students to solve real world problems and deliver results to a client. From the results, some activities yield an increase in conceptual understanding, as measured by assessment items, while others do not yield a significant increase. These activities not only help to promote conceptual gains, but also to motivate students and offer realistic engineering contexts. In conclusion, the six total IBLA and MEAS will continue in practice and be improved in their implementation. This thesis work will contribute to engineering education research of active learning methods, and improve the undergraduate dynamics curriculum locally at Cal Poly.

<p>  </p> <p>Clustering, a prevalent class of machine learning (ML) algorithms used in data mining and pattern-finding—has increasingly helped engineering education researchers and educators see and understand assessment patterns at scale. However, a challenge remains to make ML-enabled educational inferences that are useful and reliable for research or instruction, especially if those inferences influence pedagogical decisions or student outcomes. ML offers an opportunity to better personalizing learners’ experiences using those inferences, even within large engineering classrooms. However, neglecting to verify the trustworthiness of ML-derived inferences can have wide-ranging negative impacts on the lives of learners. </p> <p><br></p> <p>This study investigated what student clusters exist within the standard operational data of a large first-year engineering course (>1500 students). This course focuses on computational thinking skills for engineering design. The clustering data set included approximately 500,000 assessment data points using a consistent five-scale criterion-based grading framework. Two clustering techniques—N-TARP profiling and K-means clustering—examined criterion-based assessment data and identified student cluster sets. N-TARP profiling is an expansion of the N-TARP binary clustering method. N-TARP is well suited to this course’s assessment data because of the large and potentially high-dimensional nature of the data set. K-means clustering is one of the oldest and most widely used clustering methods in educational research, making it a good candidate for comparison. After finding clusters, their interpretability and trustworthiness were determined. The following research questions provided the structure for this study: RQ1 – What student clusters do N-TARP profiling and K-means clustering identify when applied to structured assessment data from a large engineering course? RQ2 – What are the characteristics of an average student in each cluster? and How well does the average student in each cluster represent the students of that cluster? And RQ3 – What are the strengths and limitations of using N-TARP and K-means clustering techniques with large, highly structured engineering course assessment data?</p> <p><br></p> <p>Although both K-means clustering and N-TARP profiling did identify potential student clusters, the clusters of neither method were verifiable or replicable. Such dubious results suggest that a better interpretation is that all student performance data from this course exist in a single homogeneous cluster. This study further demonstrated the utility and precision of N-TARP’s warning that the clustering results within this educational data set were not trustworthy (by using its W value). Providing this warning is rare among the thousands of available clustering methods; most clustering methods (including K-means) will return clusters regardless. When a clustering algorithm identifies false clusters that lack meaningful separation or differences, incorrect or harmful educational inferences can result. </p>