National frameworks for science, technology, engineering, math- ematics, and computer science (STEM+CS) education aim to inte- grate CS within K-12 science classrooms. However, the ways that elementary teachers verbally support CS integration during classroom enactment of STEM+CS projects has rarely been considered in research. This paper uses a descriptive, single case study methodology in the bounded context of a public elementary school to explore how two fifth-grade science teachers implicitly and explicitly support the integration of STEM+CS disciplines within a CS-focused lesson through verbal supports that were either planned in the STEM+CS project curricular materials or added by the teachers. Data sources included transcripts of all whole-class discussions that occurred while the two fifth-grade science teachers co-taught a CS lesson that spanned three fifty-minute class periods to two different classes. Two researchers team coded instances of teachers' verbal support of STEM+CS integration, wrote memos for each instance, and graphed the instances on a four-quadrant, analytic framework which was divided along an axis of explicit or implicit verbal support and an axis of planned or added verbal support. The researchers then grouped their memos by quadrant and used pattern coding to look across instances for emerging themes. Findings include that most instances of verbal support for STEM+CS interdisciplinary integration were added by the teachers and implicitly articulated how disciplinary practices related to each other. Implications include recommendations for ways to help teachers to explicitly support the integration of STEM+CS through CS-focused activities within elementary science classrooms.

This research category full paper aims to contribute to the body of research in the motivation of engineering students to engage in sociotechnical problems. Students' characteristics are in constant evolution and the core of those currently enrolled in college belong to Generation Z, who have been documented to be more identified with sustainability goals, and with higher civic engagement than previous generations. In addition, research has shown that students with marginalized identities are more interested in engaging in engineering to contribute to solving complex social problems. While engineering has significant potential to contribute to sustainability, engineering education has often failed to strengthen such orientations for students. To explore the capital of students motivations at their time of entry to an engineering program we engage in a qualitative study of student artifacts generated within a first-year engineering seminar in Fall 2022. This study aims to gauge their interest when they start their engineering degrees and explore the differences in such interest by their intended engineering major and demographic characteristics. We used the reflections of 481 first-year undergraduate engineering students to explore which aspects of care guided the type of problems they were interested in tackling in the world. Framed under Ehrenfeld's taxonomy of concerns for sustainability we found that many students were motivated by one or more forms of care, care for the world, care for others, care for self. There was some overlap between the considered caring spaces; however, 21% of the students in our study were motivated by purely technical issues, demonstrating the need for strengthened connections between the teaching of engineering design and the ways that such a design may impact or create meaning in society The identification of problems that interest and motivate undergraduate engineers brings valuable insights into the preparation of more thoughtful and effective engineers.

This research category full paper aims to contribute to the body of research in sense of belonging in engineering education through a qualitative participatory research design in which students with minoritized identities contribute to an institutional goal of designing initiatives that address local problems of exclusion. While a lot has been explored about the dynamics of sense of belonging in the classroom, and faculty have been identified as key actors to enhance such sense of belonging, it is important to recognize that perceptions of exclusion or lack of sense of belonging can take place in any institutional space, and that institutions can have the leverage to enact inclusionary policies that can enhance student sense of belonging. Therefore, the overarching goals is to integrate the voices of minoritized students in the creation of potential solutions as a particular engineering institution in the U.S. northeast. This paper focuses on the descriptions of negative experiences described by our participants, responding to the research questions, where did racially minoritized students describe having had exclusionary experiences? And who were the actors involved in such exclusionary experiences? Our results show that while a significant number of exclusionary experiences (i. e. when students felt like they did not belong) still happen in the classroom, many of them are also taking place in alternative academic settings that have less accountability and can lead to enacting exclusionary cultures such as labs, office hours, and libraries. In addition, participants reported having exclusionary experiences in areas of student living, such as dining halls and student residences. These experiences included episodes of sexism and racism and shaped how minoritized students perceived their belonging at an engineering school and the whole institution. Furthermore, faculty were not the only actors involved in exclusionary experiences, but graduate teaching assistants, staff, and peer students were also part of such episodes. These results bring policy making possibilities to institutions that want to enhance equity and inclusion.

In this Full Research Category paper, we will provide a detailed description of how we are using analytical memo-writing within a mixed methods grounded theory study. The goal of our work is to identify key elements from undergraduate research experiences (UREs) that can be translated into the classroom by exploring the connections between engineering students' researcher identities, perceptions of research, and epistemic thinking within the context of UREs. The qualitative phase of our study which is the focus on this paper takes a grounded theory approach as we explore our research questions using in-depth interviews. Interviews were conducted by researcher pairs, transcribed, and cleaned. Preliminary analysis, which included initial coding, was conducted by researcher pairs to increase the validity of the analysis and facilitate analytical discussions between researchers. After initial coding, the researcher pairs constructed analytical memos with three parts: (1) summary of the participant (factual representation), (2) summary of salient themes/codes/analysis, and (3) connections of themes/analysis to other participants. We are using these memos to facilitate a constant comparative approach across participants, communicate and understand complex relationships between concepts, and enhance the development of our grounded theory model. As part of our description of our analytical memos, we provide details and examples from our study for each part of the memo. We also discuss the ways in which we have found the analytical memos to be helpful in our analysis. In particular, we discuss our use of the theoretical coding (three-part coding where you identify context, mechanism, and outcome) and magnitude coding (quantify qualitative data by creating Likert-type Scales for specific concepts) of our memos, which allow us to explore relationships between concepts and produce empirical support for the connections within our grounded theory model.

As the need for qualified science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) graduates increases, there is an accompanying need for improved undergraduate STEM education. Undergraduate Research Experiences (UREs) have been shown to enhance an undergraduate student's academic experience; however, not all students can participate in or have access to UREs due to schedule constraints during the school year or other commitments in the summer. Our current research project seeks to determine how students develop a researcher identity and transform their epistemic beliefs through UREs. Elements identified to contribute to students' researcher identities and epistemic beliefs will then be translated into strategies that can be incorporated into traditional learning environments. This paper will overview the progress made in the first part of this multi-phase, multi-institution project and preliminary results from the initial surveys.