This full research paper uses sequential explanatory mixed-method design to explore and understand the reasons and motivations behind students' decisions to participate or not participate in completely optional, online formative assessments and how these reasons and motivations explain the different relationships between their formative assessment participation and summative achievement in a large first-year undergraduate fundamental engineering course in a land grand university in the western United States. In purpose terms, formative assessment is a learner-centered approach that allows students to assess their learning, identify their misconceptions, and address them early in the learning process. Formative assessments also help teachers to receive feedback that may help them adjust their instruction to students' learning needs. Extensive empirical and theoretical research has established the benefits of formative assessments in improving learning and instructional effectiveness within different subject areas, educational levels, and learning contexts. However, the fact that formative assessments are for feedback purposes and are usually low-stake or no-stake assessments might hypothetically affect students' motivation to participate in these assessments. This research could provide insights into enhancing students' motivation and engagement in formative assessments, thereby improving their learning outcomes. Students' formative assessment participation and summative achievement data in a class of 140 students were quantitatively analyzed to identify a purposive sample of eight (08) students with different levels of participation in formative assessments and different summative achievements. These eight students were selected based on the criteria as follows: students with (1) high formative assessment participation and high summative achievement, (2) high formative assessment participation and low summative achievement, (3) low formative assessment participation and high summative achievement, and (4) low formative assessment participation and low summative achievement. These students were then interviewed using semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions to collect insights into their reasons and motivations regarding different levels of participation in these assessments and to explore how these reasons and motivations explain their summative achievements. A deductive approach was employed to code and analyze the data and identify emerging patterns and themes. Results show that students' reasons and motivations are guided by their diverse achievement goal orientations. Moreover, these orientations also seem to dictate their strategies in formative assessment participation, which may, in turn, affect their achievement. One very significant finding of the study is that the voluntary and optional nature of formative assessments encourages students with a performance-avoidance orientation to participate because there is no fear of judgment or failure. These findings significantly impact our understanding of students' participation in formative assessments and have implications for practice. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB).

Undergraduate engineering is a stressful field of study. Mental health and wellbeing (MHW) play an important role in persistence and academic success in higher education. The research into the MHW of engineering undergraduates is in its infancy with most of the attention focused on contributing factors to mental health problems. There is only a handful of studies investigating positive influences on the MHW of engineering undergraduates which may help mitigate or even prevent mental health problems. Among others, subjective wellbeing (SWB) is one of the areas used by positive psychologists to investigate factors contributing positively to mental health. This study focused on four constructs i.e., academic satisfaction, academic efficacy, school connectedness, and college gratitude that contribute to overall SWB. The purpose of this study is to explore the perceptions of undergraduate engineering faculty about the contributors to the SWB of their students. Five undergraduate engineering faculty interviews were conducted at a western land grand higher education institution in the fall of 2021 and spring of 2022. Qualitative data from the interviews were thematically analyzed resulting in several emerging themes. Four emerging themes from the interviews highlighted the importance of several contributors to the SWB of engineering undergraduates as perceived by their faculty. These themes pointed towards the importance of student motivation and willingness to interact with their faculty, the flexibility of faculty's attitude, peer interactions, and hands-on learning experiences for future career prospects to be important ingredients for the SWB of engineering undergraduates and ultimately their mental health and wellbeing. The outcomes from this research provide us with insight into what undergraduate faculty perceived to be important to the SWB of their students. These findings may be guides for educational institutions to offer their students an enriched environment to improve their MHW and academic success.

This work-in-progress research explores the practice of formative assessments (FA) in the form of informal FA conversations by a high school teacher teaching engineering design curriculum in an all-girls high school in the US southwest. An observation protocol informed by the Eliciting, Students' response, Recognition, and Use (ESRU) model and Formative Assessment Cycle was developed and testing to capture informal FA practices in an authentic setting using classroom observations. The teacher observed in this study had no explicit awareness that her practices were being observed. Initial observations show a frequent utilization of informal FA practices associated with eliciting, recognizing, and using student responses to connect to learning goals in the form of FA conversations. These practices did not include clarifying expectations or sharing learning goals. Initial observations also show that the teacher frequently uses these practices to introduce new topics instead of starting such engagements to assess concepts that have already been delivered. Implications and future directions will focus on understanding how these inquisitive, informal FA practices can be used to deliver new concepts and improve student learning.