<p> The limited numbers of women in advanced mathematics courses is a critical factor hindering women’s academic and professional access to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Informal learning environments have the potential to play a significant role in promoting the participation of girls and women in mathematics/STEM fields. However, research that addresses the intersection of informal education, mathematics education, and women’s studies is minimal. Specifically, little is known about informal educators’ lived experiences in facilitating girls’ learning. Based on four years of working alongside Laura, the founder of Girls Excelling in Math and Science (GEMS) clubs, I conducted a narrative inquiry that explored our boundary crossing experiences as we engaged in a GEMS collaboration. The exploration focused on Laura’s narratives of her past, present, and future experiences that shape her identity as an informal educator. During the exploration of Laura’s experiences, I reflected on and inquired about my own personal and professional experiences across multiple contexts that inform my evolving identity as an educator. The theoretical framework of this study is informed by feminist theory and boundary-crossing perspectives. Feminist theory guides me to perceive our narrative of experiences from a women’s perspective while the boundary-crossing framework provides an analytic lens to understand our interpersonal and intrapersonal boundary crossing experiences. Because of the nature of the narrative inquiry, data were co-constructed between Laura and me in various forms: interviews, field notes, family stories, autobiographical writing, documents, conversations, emails, etc. I employed Polkinghorne’s (1995) <em>narrative analysis </em>and <em>analysis of narrative</em> approaches to analyze data. First, I utilized a <em>narrative analysis </em>approach to generate three holistic plots: (1) narratives of becoming female educators, (2) boundary-crossing collaboration in the midst of GEMS, and (3) conceptualizing mathematics across multiple contexts. An<em> analysis of narrative</em> approach was used to generate themes that unfold the meanings of stories, moments, and events and configure the plot. In the findings, I portrayed the three plots which allowed me to rediscover and reconstruct our personal practical knowledge across the contexts. Building on the findings, I discuss how female educators’ narratives of experiences inform their personal practical knowledge, which empowers girls’ and women’s personal and social experiences in mathematics/STEM. Laura and I cross multiple boundaries engaging in collaboration which provides an example of the boundary crossing collaboration between mathematics education and informal education. Based on the findings, I describe how informal learning STEM environments provide potential spaces to implement alternative curricula to humanize mathematics. Two evolving mathematics-related tasks illustrate our experiences of humanizing mathematics in GEMS. This study is situated at the intersection of mathematics education, informal education, and women’s studies, which significantly impacted Laura, myself, and GEMS, the context in which this study took place. This study provides an example of the possibilities of building boundary-crossing collaborations between the mathematics education community and the informal education community to empower girls and women in mathematics/STEM. Drawing on this dissertation study, one future research direction focuses on implementing and further developing humanized mathematics curricula in informal learning environments. Another research direction is using intersectional feminist theory to understand women’s differences regarding multiple social constructs (e.g., race, gender, class, ethnicity) to explicate the dimensions of inequality women face in mathematics/STEM. The study also suggests future practical work for mathematics education to foster alternative ways of conceptualizing mathematics regarding curriculum and approach. Mathematics educators could contribute to creating a learning community and providing professional development opportunities to support informal educators. </p>

<p dir="ltr">This three-article dissertation explores Learning by Evaluating (LbE), an educational approach that enhances student learning through the process of assessing and providing feedback on peer work. Leveraging principles of comparative judgement, students evaluate pairs of exemplars side-by-side to determine which is better and provide a rational for their decision, actively engaging in the assessment process. Students engage in critical thinking to justify their decisions, enhancing their understanding of the task at hand by discerning quality where they can apply these principles to their own assignments. Teachers may use this as a formative assessment tool to elicit student insights and misconceptions to better utilize teaching strategies and address specific needs. Engaging students in feedback allows teachers and students to communicate about a shared value structure, making the design process more comprehensive and manageable. Importantly, teachers have control over the duration of student engagement with LbE in the classroom. Once students have started the decision-making process, teachers can use a website interface to bring the session to a close, ensuring that all students finish simultaneously. Once these sessions have been created, they can be reused, further enhancing the efficiency of LbE in the classroom.</p><p dir="ltr">An important part of this process is the selection of exemplars for student evaluation. In my first paper, I engage in a systematic literature review of 33 articles on exemplars and their influence on the student learning experience in secondary and post-secondary education. Through this process, nine key themes were identified: clarity of instruction, learner focus, motivation for learning, student reflection on learning, building student self-efficacy, identifying instructional challenges, providing contrasting cases, the relationship between exemplar quality and student work quality, and raising the bar for learning outcomes. Findings suggest that the selection of exemplars has a significant influence over student motivation, understanding, and application, and that time should be taken not only to identify these items, but to use them as a means to discuss and clarify expectations to enhance the learning experience.</p><p dir="ltr">After establishing the educational merits in the first paper, I explore how selected pre-engineering teachers integrate LbE into their classrooms. To do this I use a design-based research approach in my second paper to both analyze and optimize the implementation of this method in a secondary STEM education setting through an investigation of student comments and justifications throughout the design process for five teachers after the first year of piloting the program in their classrooms. Findings show diverse student engagement and decision-making patterns, highlighting the importance of strategic integration of Learning by Evaluating for both students and educators.</p><p dir="ltr">In my final paper, recognizing that much of the research of Learning by Evaluating has focused on student outcomes in groups, I investigate the benefits on students as individuals. Using quasi-experimental research, a conceptual replication study was initiated to investigate the influence of Learning by Evaluating of 325 undergraduate students in an entry-level design thinking course as they prepare for and conduct qualitative research interviews. While the original study used LbE to have students develop PoV statements as a group, this replication study builds on that research by using the same methods and a similar sample of students from the same course, but shifts the focus to individual interviews to inform the PoV problem statement. The findings show that students in the treatment group prepared more open-ended questions, indicating improved interview preparation, however, the actual length of interviews showed no significant improvement. The study used random sampling and independent samples t-tests to compare treatment and control groups, with results suggesting that this is an effective pedagogical strategy for individualized work, highlighting its value for educators and researchers in optimizing comparative judgement to enhance student learning experiences.</p><p dir="ltr"><br></p>

<p dir="ltr">This dissertation investigates the dynamics of co-regulated learning within the context of teamwork in higher education with a focus on software development courses. Co-regulated learning, where team members collaboratively manage, adapt, and synchronize their learning processes, is essential for effective teamwork and improved learning outcomes. The study comprises three interrelated investigations: a systematic literature review of co-regulation in higher education, an empirical evaluation of co-regulated learning strategies in a software development course, and a longitudinal study on the evolution of these strategies over time.</p><p dir="ltr">The systematic literature review synthesizes findings from 25 empirical studies on co-regulation in teamwork, highlighting the theoretical foundations, methodological approaches, and gaps in existing research on co-regulation. The first study examines how co-regulated learning strategies influence team interactions, performance, and learning outcomes in a semester-long software development course, identifying common challenges and effective practices such as adaptive planning, proactive monitoring, and reflective practices. The second study provides a dynamic view of how co-regulation strategies evolve over multiple project milestones, demonstrating how teams transition from initial role exploration to more defined responsibilities and improved collaboration over time and offering deeper insights into the factors influencing team dynamics and effectiveness.</p><p dir="ltr">Key findings highlight the importance of structured planning, continuous monitoring, reflective evaluation in fostering effective teamwork and co-regulation, and the dynamic evolution of teamwork strategies. The research contributes to understanding co-regulated learning in software development education and offers practical insights for fostering effective teamwork skills such as integration of co-regulation strategies into educational curricula and the development of instructional interventions to support collaborative learning. This research contributes to the theoretical understanding of co-regulated learning and offers practical recommendations for educators, policymakers, and researchers to enhance teamwork and co-regulation skills in higher education, ultimately preparing students for the collaborative demands of the software industry.</p>

<p dir="ltr">Scientific writing is a core competency within the undergraduate biology curriculum (AAAS, 2010), as it has wide-ranging applications in academic and professional life, alongside being a powerful tool for formative learning (Wingate, 2010). Due to its importance in critical analysis and understanding of biological concepts, developing scientific writing is necessary for success within the biological sciences disciplines (Clemmons et al., 2020). Peer review has emerged as a common pedagogical technique to address the need for scientific writing training. The expansive literature on peer review indicates its ability to engage students in critical thinking, increase writing confidence, and improve academic performance on writing assignments (Dochy et al., 1999; S. Gielen et al., 2010; van Zundert et al., 2010). Research on the usage of scaffolded curriculum within peer review has shown increased review validity from students (Cho et al., 2006; Liu & Li, 2014), and integrated plans to revise leads to increased revisions (Wu & Schunn, 2021) and the incorporation of more feedback that is correct (Jurkowski, 2018). However, despite the breadth of peer review research, the number of quasi-experimental and experimental studies assessing the benefits and perceptions of revision is small (Double et al., 2020; van Zundert et al., 2010). This study provides a detailed look at the effects of scaffolded peer review and structured revision on student perceptions of scientific writing self-efficacy and the utility value of the peer review process. After performing peer review, students were given either a supported revision worksheet, wherein students list the feedback received and if it is useful for revisions, or a general revision worksheet, where students list their planned revisions. Quantitative surveys and qualitative reflection questions were administered to gauge the scientific writing ability and the perceived usefulness of peer review and were compared between treatment groups. Little to no difference was found in how students perceived their scientific writing self-efficacy and the utility value of the peer review process. Despite the lack of differences, analysis of the themes within responses reveals alignment with the theoretical frameworks guiding this research. This study provides a rich account of the characteristics of scientific writing self-efficacy and utility value in undergraduate biology students during peer review and revision, which have implications for the future development of an effective scaffolded peer review curriculum.</p>

<p dir="ltr">This project aims to determine the overall attitude towards chemistry in a general chemistry course primarily taken by non-chemistry science majors. Given that this course is required for non-chemistry science majors, such as engineering, it is hypothesized that the courses (CHM 115 and CHM 116) directly relate to STEM retention within Purdue. Surveys were conducted and analyzed by format and course. It was determined that the course format does not affect student attitude towards chemistry. The factor that played the largest role in student attitude was if the student continued to CHM 116 after completing CHM 115. Overall, the surveys conducted on students who took this course displayed that they have a low attitude towards chemistry, with CHM 116 student attitude decreasing in several factors when compared to CHM 115. Interviews were conducted to gain deeper insight into student attitudes, where it was learned that the largest factor in the negativity towards the course was the lectures. Importantly, students cited their previous experience with chemistry in high school as the reason they enjoy chemistry, clarifying that if the general chemistry course was their only chemistry exposure they would have chosen a different career path. One student specifically stated that he felt the general chemistry courses were “weed out” courses due to the way the course was run. Participants made several suggestions to address in these issues, such as conducting more demonstrations in lecture, making videos on the LMS to help students with common problems, and providing more real-life examples to help students relate chemistry to their life. Further study will need to be conducted to determine which interventions will help increase student attitude towards chemistry.</p>

Upon IRB approval, a corpus of 1,192 texts consisting of three assignments written by a total of 1,736 first year engineering students was compiled, and 117 pedagogical materials were collected. Using an iterative quantitative-qualitative approach to written discourse analysis, instances of formulaic language (4- and 6-word sequences) were identified in the corpus; formulaic language was then coded for the rhetorical functions expected in problem statements as qualitatively identified in the pedagogical materials. Additionally, three discourse-based interviews were conducted with First-year Engineering Faculty. Interview data was coded for themes of effective communication and used to triangulate the findings from the corpus analysis.

<p>Professional engineers think and act in distinctive ways when addressing engineering problems. Students need to develop this reasoning or engineering thinking during their education. Unfolding the undergraduate students’ thinking is a necessary step in designing experiences and teaching materials that foster not only their understanding of engineering concepts but also their learning to think as professional engineers. While there are previous studies about the students' thinking in other disciplines, more research is needed in engineering. This three-study dissertation aims to further our comprehension of undergraduate students’ engineering thinking using an adapted version of the Engineering Habits of Mind (EHoM) model. Specifically, the dissertation’s studies work together to continue the research that addresses the question:<em> What are the characteristics of undergraduate students</em>’ <em>engineering thinking?</em></p> <p><br></p> <p>The first study used naturalistic inquiry to holistically explore the cognition associated with the EHoM of senior chemical engineering students when improving a chemical plant. The analysis of students’ interactions showed that their redesign process followed an iterative co-evolution of the problem and solution spaces. Furthermore, they treated the task as a socio-technical problem considering engineering and non-engineering factors. In addition, while exploring problem and solution entities, they used multiple representations to communicate ideas but had difficulties translating symbolic representations into more physical, concrete representations. Regardless the technical issues and time constraints, the students completed the conceptual redesign and communicated their proposal to the client.</p> <p><br></p> <p>The second study used qualitative content analysis to examine first-year engineering students’ ideation as a cognitive skill associated with the EHoM of problem finding and creative problem solving. Particularly, it focused on students’ ideation of questions and recommendations when doing data analytics to help improve a client’s enterprise. The analysis of students’ reports showed that they expanded the problem space of the task by bringing additional information that was not provided. They asked questions focused on performing statistical analysis of the dataset and requesting information about the company’s business model. At the end of their data analytics, students made high- and low-quality recommendations considering their alignment with a specific problem, robust evidence, and the client’s needs. </p> <p><br></p> <p>The third study used qualitative descriptive research to investigate undergraduate participants' cognitive competencies within engineering systems thinking at the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition. These competencies are associated with the EHoM of problem finding, creative problem solving, systems thinking, and visualization. Mainly, the study focused on analyzing the evidence of cognitive competencies documented in the publicly available participants’ wikis where they registered their design process. Results showed that iGEM teams developed solutions with biological systems interacting with other systems and used concepts and tools from multiple disciplines. They also cooperated with stakeholders, which helped them analyze their system from multiple lenses. Moreover, depending on their upfront task, they fluidly represented their systems from structural, behavioral, and functional perspectives. </p> <p><br></p> <p>The final chapter of this dissertation presents an overarching discussion across the studies. The findings and implications will support curriculum designers, instructors, and other interested readers to prepare learning environments that promote undergraduate students’ engineering thinking. Furthermore, they may guide future efforts to continue exploring the students' thinking process when addressing engineering problems. </p>

The facilitator model for dual credit offers a way for student to earn directly transcripted credit to colleges and universities, overcoming many barriers faced by other dual credit models. Successful implementation of this model requires high degree of involvement from the cooperating institution. This IRB approved qualitative case study explored the needs of five teacher facilitators in both summer professional development and on-going support throughout the school year when implementing a facilitator model for dual credit with open-ended design coursework. Code-recode and axial coding techniques were applied to over 90 hours of transcribed data, artifacts, and observations from a seven month period to find emerging themes and offer recommendations for implementation.<p></p>

Industrial revolutions bring dynamic change to industry through major technological advances (Freeman & Louca, 2002). People and companies must take advantage of industrial revolutions in order to reap its benefits (Bruland & Smith, 2013). Currently, the 4th industrial revolution, industry is transforming advanced manufacturing and engineering capabilities through digital transformation. Company X’s production system was investigated in the research. Detailed evaluation the production process revealed bottlenecks and inefficiency (Melton, 2005). Using the Digital Twin and Discrete Event Factory Simulation, the researcher gathered factory and production input data to simulate the process and provide a system level, holistic view of Company X’s production system to show how factory simulation enables process improvement. The National Academy of Engineering supports Discrete Event Factory Simulation as advancing Personalized Learning through its ability to meet the unique problem solving needs of engineering and manufacturing process through advanced simulation technology (National Academy of Engineering, 2018). The directed project applied two process optimization experiments to the production system through the simulation tool, 3DExperience wiht the DELMIA application from Dassualt Systemes (Dassault, 2018). The experiment resulted in a 10% improvement in production time and a 10% reduction in labor costs due to the optimization

<p dir="ltr">Accurately assessing outcomes of students’ motivation when solving complex food system problems through integrating STEM learning can describe their learning experiences and help teachers make relevant connections. This study shows high school students self-reported that they were motivated by solving food system STEM projects.</p><p dir="ltr">The purpose of the study was to predict high school students’ self-efficacy (confirmed by Exploratory Factor Analysis, EFA) based on Situated Expectancy-Value Theory (SEVT) variables (confirmed by EFA). The convenience sample for this study was students from four high schools in Indiana (<i>N</i> = 160) who had participated in food system STEM projects at their schools. Quantitative data was collected using the Food System Motivation Questionnaire containing 41 items related to two self-efficacy variables and five SEVT variables. Quantitative data were analyzed using Principal Components Analysis, descriptive statistics, simple linear correlations, and multiple regression. Qualitative data were collected using a focus group interview protocol (Appendix D) and analyzed using thematic coding (deductive) followed by pattern coding. Quantitative and qualitative findings were analyzed using triangulation.</p><p dir="ltr">There were four conclusions to this study. First, the Food System Motivation Questionnaire accurately and reliably measured five variables aligned with SEVT motivation. Second, students were motivated regarding the project’s usefulness in their local contexts and reported higher cultural project self-efficacy after completing the project.<b> </b>Third, over 70% of high school students’ cultural project self-efficacy to complete a food system STEM project can be predicted based on their local context utility value, personal importance and usefulness, intrinsic value, and cost value. Local context utility value was the highest contributor of unique variance. Last, <a href="" target="_blank">after completing the food system STEM projects, urban high school students shared they made connections to their families, local and global community contexts, and future careers and applications. </a>Implications regarding how teachers can motivate high school students to solve food system STEM projects were discussed.</p>