The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a curriculum design-based (CDB) professional development model on K–12 teachers’ capacity to integrate engineering education in the classroom. This teacher professional development approach differs from other training programs where teachers learn how to use a standard curriculum and adopt it in their classrooms. In a CDB professional development model teachers actively design lessons, student resources, and assessments for their classroom instruction. In other science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, CDB professional development has been reported to (a) position teachers as architects of change, (b) provide a professional learning vehicle for educators to reflect on instructional practices and develop content knowledge, (c) inspire a sense of ownership in curriculum decision-making among teachers, and (d) use an instructional approach that is coherent with teachers’ interests and professional goals. The CDB professional development program in this study used the Explore-Create-Share (ECS) framework as an instructional model to support teacher-led curriculum design and implementation. To evaluate the impact of the CDB professional development and associated ECS instructional model, three research studies were conducted. In each study, the participants completed a six-month CDB professional development program, the PTC STEM Certificate Program, that included sixty-two instructional contact hours. Participants learned about industry and education engineering concepts, tested engineering curricula, collaborated with K–12 educators and industry professionals, and developed project-based engineering curricula using the ECS framework. The first study evaluated the impact of the CDB professional development program on teachers’ engineering knowledge, self-efficacy in designing engineering curriculum, and instructional practice in developing project-based engineering units. The study included twenty-six teachers and data was collected pre-, mid-, and post-program using teacher surveys and a curriculum analysis instrument. The second study evaluated teachers’ perceptions of the ECS model as a curriculum authoring tool and the quality of the curriculum units they developed. The study included sixty-two participants and data was collected post-program using teacher surveys and a curriculum analysis instrument. The third study evaluated teachers’ experiences implementing ECS units in the classroom with a focus on identifying the benefits, challenges and solutions associated with project-based engineering in the classroom. The study included thirty-one participants and data was collected using an open-ended survey instrument after teachers completed implementation of the ECS curriculum unit. Results of these three studies indicate that teachers can be prepared to integrate engineering in the classroom using a CDB professional development model. Teachers reported an increase in engineering content knowledge, improved their self-efficacy in curriculum planning, and developed high quality instructional units that were aligned to engineering design practices and STEM educational standards. The ECS instructional model was acknowledged as a valuable tool for developing and implementing engineering education in the classroom. Teachers reported that ECS curriculum design aligned with their teaching goals, provided a framework to integrate engineering with other subject-area concepts, and incorporated innovative teaching strategies. After implementing ECS units in the classroom, teachers reported that the ECS model engaged students in engineering design challenges that were situated in a real world context and required the application of interdisciplinary content knowledge and skills. Teachers also reported a number of challenges related to scheduling, content alignment, and access to resources. In the face of these obstacles, teachers presented a number of solutions that included optimization of one’s teaching practice, being resource savvy, and adopting a growth mindset.

In this inquiry I used Black Feminist Thought as the interpretive lens to investigate the characterizations and experiences of high achieving Black women undergraduate engineering and mathematics majors at a predominantly white institution. The qualitative inquiry considered intersecting oppressions to evaluate the experiences of this population. In particular, Black women operate in the intersection of race and gender, thus for a thorough analysis of their engineering and mathematics experiences to occur, the historical context of the United States and its oppressive structures must be considered. Stereotypes and systemic oppression follow this socially constructed identity as the participants enter the fields of engineering and mathematics as Black women. In order to develop relevant suggestions to increase the participation of this population in the field, I assert that the social construction of this intersectional identity must be considered. I evaluated the participants' experiences to determine its influence on their academic persistence and overall well-being. I implemented sista circle methodology, an ethnographic method that embodies a gender specific research methodology. Sista circle methodology expands beyond traditional methodology to draw on social relations, the wisdom of Black women in U.S. context, and functions as a medium for mentorship as a Black feminist practice. The data I collected as part of this study included a demographic survey, pre-interview, two sista circles, vision board collage, post-sista circle electronic reflection, "sista circle" alternative interview, and member checking. There were five participants in this study, and three of these participants engaged in the sista circle unity getaway and the remaining two participants completed the sista circle alternative interview. I analyzed the responses of all five participants in the interviews and sista circles to identify themes that emerged in this study. Eight themes emerged from the data: The first finding presented normalized policies and practices that reproduced an unwelcoming academic climate and specifically, 1) access to caring professors and the 2) competitive isolating environment. The academic climate forced the participants to negotiate self-doubt as they question if their program is the appropriate means to pursue their future career endeavors, in the second finding the participants experienced 3) variations in program expectations and reality, 4) a shift in academic self-concept, and 5) negotiated alternatives to persistence. In the third finding the participants responded to the conditions in the academic climate through forms of resistance, which include the construction of a 6) professional persona, 7) sense of community and peer bonds, and identifying 8) academic opportunities as motivational tools.

abstract: A reform movement in the United States has focused on STEM education and 21st century soft skills such as critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. This spotlight on STEM instruction provided an opportunity to explore how K-14 STEM teacher participants perceived a Design Thinking Instructional Problems (DTIP) approach to developing instructional lessons. The study used a convergent parallel mixed-methods design with a survey instrument and a multiple case study focused on K-14 in-service STEM teachers. Data were collected from teacher participants during two five-week summer Research Experience for Teachers (RET) programs as part of two separate National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Engineering Research Centers (ERC) located at a large southwestern university in the United States (n=16). The study was conducted over three phases. During Phase I and II, teacher participants experienced a Design Thinking Overview workshop and weekly DTIP professional development sessions to facilitate the development of an RET instructional lesson. Pre- and post-program DTIP surveys and background interviews were conducted with all teacher participants (n=16). From this original group, teacher participants were selected as cases. Implementation observations and post-implementation interviews were conducted with these case-teachers (n=10). The study included frequency analysis and descriptive statistics of survey data. Qualitative data were analyzed using direct interpretation, thematic analysis, and open coding with the constant comparative method. A variety of arrays, summaries, and matrices were used to visualize patterns across and within individual case-teacher results. All 16 teacher participants viewed themselves as designers solving complex instructional problems. All 16 teacher participants found the DTIP professional development sessions to have somewhat to very much provided additional value during their RET summer programs. Six of the 10 case-teachers perceived the DTIP model graphic as mostly to completely corresponding to the way in which they developed their RET instructional lesson. Lastly, eight of the 10 case-teachers chose to embed a Design Thinking student learning strategy into the RET instructional lesson they developed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Educational Technology 2018

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Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are growing fields in both global job markets and educational spaces. The problem related to this study was the lack of understanding of how gender and ethnicity might relate to differences in the science self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and task interest of students who have participated in STEM intervention programs at the middle school level. The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore the extent to which there were differences between the dependent variables of science self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and task interest in U.S. middle school students based on the independent variables of gender and ethnicity after participating in a citizen science STEM intervention program. Social cognitive career theory was the theoretical framework for the study. This study was a nonexperimental comparative investigation based on survey responses from students who had participated in a water quality, citizen science STEM intervention from 2017-2019. The participating students’ school district has a history of multiple, systemic STEM learning experiences. The results of two-way MANOVA indicated that there were no statistically significant differences in career choice variables between male and female students and between non-Hispanic and Hispanic students after participating in a citizen science intervention program. This study has the potential to help students from underrepresented populations to envision success in their STEM educational and career pathways by seeing other students experience success in those areas. Educators may also be better able to design programs that address the specific needs of underrepresented student populations, which may lead to better student outcomes for those groups.

<p>The purpose of this study was to understand how urban entrepreneurship exposure programs can enable minoritized students to leverage their cultural capital and create an environment that affirms their inherent strengths and cultural identity. More specifically, this study sought to answer the following questions: (1) how, and in what ways, do minoritized youth (ages 14-18) leverage their cultural capital in entrepreneurial experiences and (2) how, and in what ways, can entrepreneurial experiences create an environment that affirms minoritized youth’s (ages 14-18) inherent strengths and cultural identity? To answer these questions, a qualitative descriptive approach was used and the lenses of the <i>Community Cultural Wealth Framework</i> were leveraged to conceptualize the findings. Purposeful sampling was employed to recruit participants for this investigation. Observations of the program implementation and in-depth semi-structured interviews with two high school-aged minoritized students and one program administrator at an urban entrepreneurship exposure program in a large Midwestern city were conducted. The findings from this study suggest that cultural capital is worthy of considerable attention as it is leveraged by minoritized youth and may contribute to affirming their cultural identity and inherent strengths. Therefore, the results obtained from this study can assist entrepreneurship exposure programs in the development and enhancement of programs specifically geared toward addressing the needs of this minoritized population segment. For example, recommendations include employing Critical Race Theory in research studies, utilizing counter-storytelling for the experiences of minoritized youth, and investigating culturally sustaining innovations created by minoritized youth. The results of this study, are important as it has significant implications for developing better methods to train and nurture talents of youth in becoming confident in their cultural identities and necessitating success in becoming entrepreneurially-minded which in turn may help to further diversify, fortify the STEM workforce, and break systemic barriers. As such, this study can contribute and supplement existing literature on minoritized youth in STEM educational contexts, specifically in entrepreneurship focused STEM learning environments. </p>

Abstract: The purpose of this research was to understand: (1) the influence that an industry-situated STEM lab experience has on students’ (ages 10-18) perceptions of careers in manufacturing, and (2) the challenges and opportunities that this space presents. To answer these questions, this study analyzed participant pre- and post-draw a manufacturer tests as well as manufacturing career perception surveys that included Likert-scale items and open response questions. Along with these data sources, five semi-structured interviews were conducted with industry stakeholders in order to understand the conception and operation of the STEM lab, as well identify any challenges or opportunities to improve or replicate success for other industries. From there, the data were analyzed through thematic coding for the drawings, open-response questions, and interviews, and a Mann-Whitney U test was performed on the survey results in order to look for general shifts in responses to specific questions from before to after the STEM lab experience. The results gained from the three different data collection techniques were looked at in aggregate and used to triangulate specific understandings, questions, and recommendations. The results confirmed a lack of students’ awareness and understanding of manufacturing, misperceptions surrounding the careers within, and a disconnect between industry needs and educational output. Along with the data, literature on vocational psychology supports the need for students to participate in authentic learning opportunities to build self-efficacy and form more accurate outcome expectations with regards to future career selection. However, the data did reveal that the industry-situated STEM lab experience likely led the participants to an improved understanding of the manufacturing ecosystem and provided an opportunity for local educators to engage with industry. While this research looked at a novel application of a STEM lab and highlighted its influence on students’ perceptions of manufacturing careers, there is obviously no “silver bullet” for fixing the talent pipeline for manufacturing and continuous work in this area needs to be done.

<div>Previous studies indicated that calculus courses are considered `weed-out' courses as a lot of students in STEM majors struggle to pass. Instructors and researchers explored various instructional methods to facilitate calculus learning, however, more tailored instructional strategies are still needed. Inventing Contrasting Case is a strategy that has been proven effective in transfer, yet, its effect when combined with the motivational factor and across various content areas should be investigated further. Therefore, this study investigated the relationship between participants' motivation, instruction condition, and the performance on the direct application and transfer problems using Calculus 1 content. The data was collected from undergraduate students in STEM majors at a Midwestern university who were required to complete a Calculus 1 course to attain their degree. Eighty-one students participated for the study. Participants were assigned to either the iCalCulus (iCC) group or the Tell and Practice (TP) group. The study consisted of two separate sessions. In Session 1, participants were provided with a motivation survey, calculus course experience survey, pre-requisite knowledge check test, ICC task or TP task, and post-test. Seven days later, participants took a delayed post-test (Sesson 2). Google Forms was used to create study materials. The results from Bayesian independent sample t-test analyses indicated that the iCC group did not outperform the TP group in direct application problems. In addition, the iCC group did not outperform the TP group in PFL problems in either test. However, the ICC group outperformed the TP group in the further PFL problems from the delayed post-test (BF01 = .096, p = .003). The results from Bayesian one-way ANCOVA analyses indicated that there was the moderate idence that supports the effect of group condition on direct application, Preparation for Future Learning (PFL) performance from the post-test, while controlling for the average pre-requisite knowledge check test score and motivational level. The results also indicated that there was from moderate to strong evidence to support that group condition had an eect on PFL performance from the delayed post-test (Session 2), and the further PFL performance from both post-test and delayed post-test while controlling for the average pre-requisite knowledge check test score. In addition, motivational level was shown to not be an effective moderator between instructional condition and performance in PFL problems. The results from GLM repeated measure analyses showed the ICC strategy had a more significant effect on the participants regarding PFL performance and further PFL performance over time as there was a significant cross-over interaction effect between the time and the instruction condition (p = .012, <b>η_p²= .</b>08 for PFL performance and p = .003, <b>η_p²</b> = .11 for further PFL performance). The direction for potential future studies is addressed in the conclusion section including the importance of developing curriculum to train students' transfer ability; and a new type of assessment to measure transfer is offered for consideration.</div>

This study provides a framework to guide educators and researchers within departments of mathematics at institutions of higher education involved in reform efforts for undergraduate mainstream calculus. It does so by using motivational constructs from Self-Determination Theory to define and measure student-centeredness within both traditional and reformed calculus learning environments within a large-scale, quasi-experimental study. Motivational inventories assessing students’ perceived satisfaction of basic psychological needs and self-determined motivation were analyzed together with demographic variables, course outcomes, and prior math knowledge within traditional and reformed conditions in both Calculus I and Calculus II courses. Results include 1) positive correlates among students’ perceptions of satisfaction of basic psychological needs, intrinsic motivation, and achievement; 2) overall increased student perception of BPN-satisfaction in the reformed condition; and 3) directional variation in achievement and perception of BPN-satisfaction between conditions across subpopulations. The results demonstrate how student-centered calculus learning environments operate through motivational processes to improve academic outcomes and how learning environments may differentially affect demographic categories at institutions of higher education. Specifically, learning environments are not culturally or socially neutral and may, despite good intentions, be centered about privileged populations to the detriment of historically disenfranchised groups.