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2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Impact of Evidence-Based Active Learning Faculty Development on Low-SES Engineering Students’ Achievement

Presented at Faculty Development Medley

This is a complete research-based paper paper investigating how NSF-funded faculty development workshops aimed at improving student-centered pedagogy impacted the teaching practices and subsequent student achievement of low-SES engineering students. The faculty development project began in 2016 with the intention of shifting faculty instruction from instructor-centered, information transmission by lecture to more student-centered, conceptual change learning through active learning and engagement pedagogies. Over the course of two years, 80 engineering faculty from seven disciplines including Aerospace, Mechanical, Civil, Construction, Materials, Chemical, and Biomedical participated in 8 bi-weekly workshops (fall semester) and six bi-weekly implementation discussion sessions (spring semester). The workshops promoted pedagogical best practices and covered topics including student motivation, active learning, formative and summative feedback strategies, cooperative and collaborative learning, and educational technology.

Workshop topics were selected to improve faculty instruction for all engineering students; however, this portion of the research is designed to understand the impact of faculty participation on low-SES students specifically. Research indicates a continued gap in STEM achievement measures between low-SES students and their higher SES peers resulting in lower graduation rates from both high school and college programs and perpetuating a cycle of underrepresentation in engineering majors and subsequent STEM career fields. Research demonstrates improved low-SES student achievement in courses incorporating higher levels of active learning instructional strategies. This improvement is due, in part, to increased opportunities for collaboration, peer-to-peer interaction, and interactive formative feedback provided by active learning instructional strategies. When technology is leveraged to facilitate these interactions, low-SES students demonstrate even greater gains than those experienced by their higher-SES peers.

To investigate if similar gains would be observed after faculty participation in this professional development program, student data were collected from all undergraduate engineering courses between 2015 and 2018. We then compared student achievement, measured through final letter grade awarded for each class before and after the professional development program. For greater reliability we compared fall to fall semesters and spring to spring semesters only. A more detailed description is provided in the data analysis and results sections. Low-SES students in this study were identified by ‘Pell grant eligibility’ and student achievement was assessed through grade distribution reports as well as class withdrawal/persistence rates. Data were analyzed to answer two research questions: 1) Did low-SES students experience higher grades and lower failure rates after their instructors completed active learning professional development? 2) When low-SES student data were compared to higher-SES student data, were the rate of change was similar or different between the two demographic groups pre and post-instructor professional development? Results of these research questions are mixed and present additional opportunities for further research.

Authors
  1. Dr. Lindy Hamilton Mayled Arizona State University [biography]

    Lindy Hamilton Mayled is the Director of Instructional Effectiveness for the Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University. She has a PhD in Psychology of Learning, Education, and Technology from Grand Canyon University. Her research and are

  2. Dr. Lydia Ross Arizona State University [biography]

    Lydia Ross is a doctoral candidate and graduate research assistant at Arizona State University. Her research interests focus on higher education equity and access, particularly within STEM.

  3. Prof. Stephen J. Krause Arizona State University [biography]

    Stephen Krause is professor in the Materials Science Program in the Fulton School of Engineering at Arizona State University. He teaches in the areas of introductory materials engineering, polymers and composites, and capstone design. His research interes

  4. Prof. Keith D. Hjelmstad Arizona State University [biography]

    Keith D. Hjelmstad is President's Professor of Civil Engineering in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment at Arizona State University.

  5. Dr. Eugene Judson Orcid 16x16http://orcid.org/https://0000-0002-0124-8476 Arizona State University [biography]

    Eugene Judson is an Associate Professor of for the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. He also serves as an Extension Services Consultant for the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT). His past experiences include having been a middle school science teacher, Director of Academic and Instructional Support for the Arizona Department of Education, a research scientist for the Center for Research on Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology (CRESMET), and an evaluator for several NSF projects. His first research strand concentrates on the relationship between educational policy and STEM education. His second research strand focuses on studying STEM classroom interactions and subsequent effects on student understanding. He is a co-developer of the Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol (RTOP) and his work has been cited more than 2200 times and he has been published in multiple peer-reviewed journals such as Science Education and the Journal of Research in Science Teaching.

  6. Prof. James A. Middleton Arizona State University [biography]

    James A. Middleton is Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Director of the Center for Research on Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology at Arizona State University. For the last three years he also held the Elmhurst Energy Chair in STEM education at the University of Birmingham in the UK. Previously, Dr. Middleton was Associate Dean for Research in the Mary Lou Fulton College of Education at Arizona State University, and Director of the Division of Curriculum and Instruction. He received his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1992, where he also served in the National Center for Research on Mathematical Sciences Education as a postdoctoral scholar.

  7. Prof. Robert J. Culbertson Arizona State University [biography]

    Robert J. Culbertson is an Associate Professor of Physics. Currently, he teaches introductory mechanics and electrodynamics for physics majors and a course in musical acoustics, which was specifically designed for elementary education majors. He is director of the ASU Physics Teacher Education Coalition (PhysTEC) Project, which strives to produce more and better high school physics teachers. He is also director of Master of Natural Science degree program, a graduate program designed for in-service science teachers. He works on improving persistence of students in STEM majors, especially under-prepared students and students from under-represented groups.

  8. Kara L. Hjelmstad Arizona State University [biography]

    Kara Hjelmstad has currently worked as a faculty associate and student teacher supervisor for Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. After earning a BA degree in elementary education and an M.Ed. degree in curriculum and instruction, she spent twelve years teaching K-5 and enrichment at the elementary level.

    In 2010, Kara began teaching courses and supervising student teachers at ASU. Kara is TAP certified, an evaluation system designed to improve teaching effectiveness and student achievement. The TAP evaluation involves classroom observations, coaching, and feedback/reflection for professional growth. Kara has worked with 60+ student teachers in various subjects at the pre-K through 12th grade level, and conducted over 100 TAP classroom observations.

    Since the fall of 2016, Kara has been working with the JTFD Project, an NSF grant working to improve active learning in engineering education. She has completed 300 RTOP classroom observations in ASU engineering courses (civil, environmental, construction, chemical, aero/mechanical, materials, transportation, and biomedical engineering). The RTOP or Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol, is a rubric designed to assess student centered instruction in math and science. Kara also provided instructional coaching for 37 engineering faculty grant participants, after their teaching observations.

  9. Mrs. Kristi Glassmeyer Orcid 16x16http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7665-7768 Arizona State University [biography]

    Kristi is a Ph.D student in Educational Policy and Evaluation at Arizona State University.

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