2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Impact of "The Design of Coffee," A General Education Chemical Engineering Course, on Students’ Decisions to Major in STEM Disciplines

Presented at Chemical Engineering Division (ChED) Technical Session 1: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in ChE

The Design of Coffee is a popular general education course offered by the Department of Chemical Engineering at THE INSTITUTION that uses the roasting and brewing of coffee to teach chemical engineering principles to a broad audience. It was recently voted as the number one course by students in the "Best of CITY" yearly contest, placing ahead of other popular general education courses at THE INSTITUTION. Freshman design courses, like The Design of Coffee, are used to recruit and retain diverse students in STEM majors. These courses are intended to help students discover science and engineering majors as possible choices, especially among student populations who are unfamiliar with these majors.

Survey data have suggested that there have been students who have switched into the chemical engineering major at THE INSTITUTION because of this course. In this study, the effects of this course on freshman “non-STEM majors” course selection behaviors and decisions to change majors were investigated. It was hypothesized that non-STEM students taking The Design of Coffee would be more likely to change into STEM majors non-STEM students who did not take this course due to the its experiential and approachable nature. Additionally, students who switched into chemical engineering after taking The Design of Coffee were identified and interviewed in order to probe particular aspects of the course that were influential in their decision to change majors.

In order to evaluate the hypothesis, data was collected from the transcripts of students who entered THE INSTITUTION in Fall 2013 or later (so that they would have had a chance to take the coffee course), have since graduated, were enrolled in a non-STEM degree program upon admission, and who took a STEM course towards their general education topical breadth requirement during their first year. Transcripts from individuals who did not meet these criteria were excluded from the study.

Students whose transcripts met the above criteria were divided into two groups: 1) Students who took a “core” STEM course (general chemistry or biology) during their first year before or while taking the coffee course or another comparable introductory food science related STEM course, and 2) students who did not take any core STEM courses during their first year. The purpose was to differentiate between students whose coursework indicated they may be inclined to pursue a STEM degree from those who appeared to not be inclined to take STEM courses or enter a STEM degree program.

For each of these groups, the number of students who graduated with a STEM degree were tabulated for students who took the coffee course vs. students who took a comparable introductory food science related STEM course. Additionally, the impact of remote instruction was investigated by looking both at students who graduated before pandemic-related remote instruction began and those who were impacted. The statistical significance of the variation in type of bachelor's degree earned across the cohorts was determined using chi-squared tests with  = 0.05.

At least 12 students were found have changed their major into chemical or biochemical engineering after taking The Design of Coffee and have since graduated. Those that we had the opportunity to interview spoke to the significant impact this course played in changing the trajectory of their academic journey and their career. More broadly speaking, non-STEM freshman students taking this course and had taken or were concurrently enrolled in a “core” STEM course were significantly more likely to change into and graduate in STEM majors as compared to students taking a comparable introductory food science course prior to pandemic-initiated remote instruction beginning in Spring 2020 (58.1% vs. 39.3%, p = 0.042). While the remote instruction period eroded this impact, it is our hope and expectation that as most classes at THE INSTITUTION have returned to in-person instruction, students taking The Design of Coffee will once again be motivated to change into and persist in STEM majors, adding much needed talent to the pool of perspective scientists and engineers.

Authors

Esohe Fawole University of California, Davis [biography]

Esohe Fawole is currently a senior chemical engineering graduate student (Ph.D., ABD) at the University of California, Davis. They received their B.S. in chemical engineering from Cornell University in 2017. Their research interests include charge transport phenomena across liquid-solid and gas-solid interfaces under high voltage electric fields as well as chemical engineering education regarding recruitment and retention of first-year students. Esohe has been recognized for their commitment to teaching by receiving the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award from the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Graduate Student Teaching Award from the College of Engineering at UC Davis. Outside of work and academics, Esohe enjoys volunteering with ESTEME, an after school STEM program for underrepresented middle school students, and crossword puzzles.
Glaucia Prado http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9153-5913 University of California, Davis [biography]

Glaucia Prado is an Assistant Professor of Teaching in Chemical Engineering at University of California Davis. She began her career in food engineering from the University of Campinas (Brazil) before earning a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Alberta. She teaches a variety of courses such as thermodynamics and senior kinetics lab and developed a new food engineering elective course for chemical engineering students that consists in applying engineering concepts in the context of food processing. Her research interests include students' wellness, scientific history, inclusive teaching, and food engineering. She is currently piloting a new class that focus on student's well being and success, community building, and providing academic support for chemical engineering courses.
Prof. William Ristenpart University of California, Davis [biography]

William Ristenpart is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of California
Davis and the founding director of the UC Davis Coffee Center. He received his PhD from
Princeton University and did his postdoctoral work at Harvard University before joining the
faculty at UC Davis in 2008. A member of the UC Davis Food Science Graduate Group, Prof.
Ristenpart's area of research expertise is in complex transport phenomena, as exemplified
by the mass transfer that occurs during coffee brewing. The introductory class that he co-
developed, titled "The Design of Coffee: An Introduction to Chemical Engineering," is now the
most popular elective course at UC Davis, taught to 2000 students per year.
Dr. Jason White http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4175-8788 University of California, Davis [biography]

Dr. Jason R. White is an Associate Professor of Teaching in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of California, Davis. Dr. White has been a faculty member at UC Davis since 2015, and he teaches process design and economics, process safety, bioseparations, and senior laboratory courses. He has helped lead the creation of the CHEM E CAD and Industrial Automation club at UC Davis, and he has sought to develop authentic, project-based learning experiences for his students in his courses. Dr. White also serves as the accreditation lead for the chemical engineering program at UC Davis.

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