University-elementary school partnerships: analyzing the impact of a service-learning freshman engineering course on students’ engineering values and competence beliefs

• Autores: Mandy Mclean, Jasmine Mcbeath, Tyler Susko, Danielle B. Harlow, Julie Bianchini
• Localización: The International journal of engineering education, ISSN-e 0949-149X, Vol. 35, no. Extra 5, 2019, págs. 1415-1424
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • There is a growing demand in the US for more engineers, yet attrition rates from university engineering programs are high anddiversity in engineering is low. Few resources have been dedicated to the improvement of freshman engineering courses eventhough freshman students have the highest rates of attrition. Through a synthesis of the literature on inclusive instructionalstrategies and participant structures in educational settings, we developed, implemented, and researched a freshman mechanicalengineering design course that incorporated elements of project-based learning, collaboration, service-learning, and customer-oriented design through a partnership with a local elementary school. Our research was grounded in the value and competencebelief constructs defined by expectancy-value theory. Engineering values include enjoying engineering tasks, viewing engineering as useful, and identifying as an engineer and engineering competence beliefs encompass beliefs in one’s engineering abilities in thepresent, as well expectancies for success in the future. Rich qualitative data collected from 72 undergraduate participants suggestedthat this course was both highly valued and helpful for increasing engineering competence beliefs. Further, these positive impactswere consistent across gender. From our results, we provide recommendations for strategies to help grow and diversify engineering.