This work-in-progress paper does not stem from specific research questions but rather emerges from secondary findings within a broader study on the culture of STEM ethics. Our focus is on exploring the connection between empathy and ethics, which became apparent as study participants often intertwined these concepts. The contribution of this paper lies in its exploration of the empathy-ethics relationship and its relevance to ethics education in STEM, offering insights that may enrich discussions and practices within the community. The primary study aimed to understand the components that constitute a culture of ethics, utilizing thirteen focus groups with students and faculty and guided by interview questions centered on culture of STEM ethics. However, upon analyzing the data, the researchers observed that participants often discussed empathy instead of ethics. In this work-in progress paper, we only focus on the emerging themes related to the construct empathy and begin to explore the relationship between ethics and empathy. Data analysis employing thematic analysis techniques, with a specific focus on identifying patterns and themes related to empathy and its intersections with ethics, is currently undergoing. Despite addressing an important topic, this study is still work-in-progress and does not yet yield significant results for broader conclusions. Further research is needed to assess how these dynamics evolve over time and across different contexts. Completing the study, including the ongoing analysis, will help address these limitations, and we outline the next steps for finalizing this work in the last section of the paper.

This research full paper examines how a student’s self-concept plays a role in choosing to enter an engineering program. Student representation in engineering programs is largely homogenous, which likely hampers growth and progress in this field. Society’s views of an engineer and engineering work are similarly homogenous and may lend to the field’s lack of diversity. Because the stereotype of engineers is skewed towards "masculine" and "thing-oriented," we measured self-concept in terms of three dimensions: gender, thing orientation, and person orientation. We compared these facets of first-year students to their reasoning for pursuing an undergraduate engineering degree. We found that students’ reasons for undertaking an engineering degree aligned with their self-concept, such that role models and their personal views of what engineering entails and accomplishes fit with their self-concept. Understanding what leads students to pursue this challenging degree can help with efforts to reach a more diverse student population and develop the interests of potential engineers from a young age.

This innovative practice full paper presents the development and evaluation of a virtual learning tool. To provide a stimulating environment, a semester-long project is designed (as a part of an introductory Thermodynamics course) that requires students to design a virtual power plant. The project includes a range of tasks that provide students an opportunity to understand various aspects involved in construction of a power plant such as: choosing a geographic location for the power plant based on energy demands, examining economic and social impacts involved in construction of a power plant, and performing design calculations on individual components of the power plant. To aid students’ understanding of the abstract engineering concepts involved in this project, a virtual objects (vObjects) tool is developed that includes animations, videos, and power, efficiency and design calculators. This article explains the tool development process (code and rationale), testing of the tool, tool refinement, and analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of the tool. The vObjects tool is developed using the LabVIEW software from National Instruments. Based on the analysis, the tool is found to improve the conceptual understanding of the topics in the course. The overall objective of this work is to understand the effectiveness of virtual learning environments. Results from the usability study suggest vObjects tool is user friendly and intuitive to use by undergraduate engineering students. Further, this tool can be used or modified for pedagogy of various science or engineering courses from K-12 to college where the use of physical objects is limited.

This work-in-progress paper in the research category presents a case study conducted in an advanced undergraduate course that is part of an interdisciplinary minor in innovation. Our study investigates student collaborations in a cross-disciplinary course spanning engineering, business, and industrial design approaches to creativity and innovation in commercializing technologies. We examine whether instructor methods, course structure, and curriculum contribute to interdisciplinary collaboration. Our study included faculty and student interviews to present multiple perspectives regarding interdisciplinarity and creativity.

Engineering students conceptualize problems in diverse ways depending how the problems are presented. In this study, we investigate how different representations of problems, such as with images and sketches versus traditional word description of problems, allow students to recall information. Some students experience difficulties visualizing a concept when given a word problem while others do not have the same difficulty. A plausible explanation is that students who have less difficulties may be more creative problem solvers or have a better understanding of the material. Data for this study was taken from 132 students enrolled in an introductory thermodynamics course in a large Midwestern university. Half of the participants (n=65) were asked to recognize applications of Laws of Thermodynamics in comparison to the other half (n=67) who were presented with images and asked to identify which Law of Thermodynamics was being depicted. We hypothesized that a higher percentage of students presented with only the images would answer correctly questions of the Laws of Thermodynamics compared to the students who were presented with a standard text description of the problems and asked to answer the questions. The results did not corroborate with our hypothesis. Findings revealed nearly identical performance. In this exploratory study, we discuss outcomes in terms of the underlying links between students' abilities to recall information and the potential of visual representations to enhance learning of thermodynamics-related concepts.

Many engineering disciplines are concerned with the creation of tangible objects, however using physical objects to facilitate learning in the engineering classroom is not broadly applied. Tangible objects are primarily used in design projects, with less attention to objects in other engineering activities. Nowadays a lot of attention is given on the Making and Maker movement. Questions remain whatever these activities help people learn engineering. We have completed two studies investigating the efficacy on concrete objects in the same engineering task with different experiential conditions. This work-in-progress is the third study from a line of research, where now virtual objects are included as a new study condition.

Universities are experiencing an increase in enrollment of high-functioning students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Even though many students with ASD do not attend college, it is reported that students with this diagnosis who do, often come from well to do families, and select STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) education areas at rates above both the general population, and other differently-abled groups. While students classified with this diagnosis may hail from privileged educational exposures and demonstrate higher cognitive abilities, they often lack the ability to empathize and experience difficulty to socially connect with others. This includes an inability to decode informal social cues, which can impact the ability to communicate ideas during classroom situations. Concurrent to this notable shift in STEM student demographics, the landscape of engineering education is also changing. Greater emphasis is placed on providing an engaging and interactive student learning environment, bolstered by research demonstrating improved learning outcomes and higher retention rates. This work in process is the development of an emergent literature review, looking for the intersection between this student diagnosis, and the impact on the engineering education classroom and related stakeholders. Our work is an important first step in informing and guiding faculty and staff engagement on this unique and growing student population, especially in light of a national focus on STEM education, and dynamic changes in engineering education.

Providing instruction for a First Year Engineering (FYE) course with intensive use of MATLAB, and a sophomore fundamental engineering Thermodynamics course can present challenges when attempting to find ways to engage students in the deeper meaning of the content. However, the experience of incorporating everyday example framing to relate course materials to student's contextual environment appeared to favorably influence students' classroom attitudes about learning difficult concepts as well as help them remember essential elements of the course material. These independent classroom experiences led to the design of an exploratory study examining the students' self-confidence, motivation, content appreciation, and persistence after incorporating relevance-based activities in these two courses. Preliminary results suggest that students are more engaged in class and retain key conceptual knowledge of the subject. Further, while creating everyday examples, it became apparent that many examples may offer value when used in a variety of fundamental engineering and non-engineering courses.

Academics, industrial leaders, and policy makers seem to agree that the United States can improve its ability to attract and retain engineering talent. Efforts aimed at addressing this need vary broadly from increasing the public's awareness of the problem, to re-framing the identity of engineering, de-emphasizing its less glamorous aspects, and orienting engineering's future toward solving the world's greatest problems facing humanity. In doing so, it is suggested that engineering would be a more appealing profession to groups that are historically under-represented. The fundamental assumption of these efforts is that an improved image of engineering as a socially engaged helper of humanity will result in greater initial and prolonged interest in engineering. Research investigating engineering as a profession has found few examples of specific engineering disciplines considered socially sensitive. This may suggest engineering is a career choice better aligned with individuals who prefer working with things rather than people. This exploratory study will utilize the Graziano, Habashi, & Woodcock (2011) Person and Thing Orientation Scale to examine how these things versus person tendencies appear in engineering college students and practicing engineers. It aims to identify potential sources of differentiation for these preferences within and across the sample populations.

Children's experiences in early childhood have significant lasting effects in their overall development and in the United States today the majority of young children spend considerable amounts of time in early childhood education settings. At the national level, there is an expressed concern about the low levels of student interest and success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Bringing these two conversations together our research focuses on how young children of preschool age exhibit behaviors that we consider relevant in engineering. There is much to be explored in STEM education at such an early age, and in order to proceed we created an experimental observation protocol in which we identified various pre-engineering behaviors based on pilot observations, related literature and expert knowledge. This protocol is intended for use by preschool teachers and other professionals interested in studying engineering in the preschool classroom.