2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Board 431: Why Research Involvement Makes an Engaging Learning Experience for Neurodiverse Students

Presented at NSF Grantees Poster Session

This presentation combines the findings of two closely-related REU programs, one which ran from 2015-2019 and was specifically for engineering students with ADHD, and a second program, running from 2022-present, open to neurodiverse engineering students (specifically targeting ADHD, dyslexia and/or anxiety). Both sites were funded through the NSF Division Of Engineering Education and Centers (NSF EEC). These programs are inspired by research which links the above neurodiversities to increased creativity and innovation, as well as the ability to visualize complex systems. Both REU programs are inspired by the strengths-based approach to neurodiversity. This model builds an environment which plays to a neurodiverse student’s strengths, rather than mitigating their challenges.
This presentation will provide an overview of the sites and present three datasets: 1) the impact of the programs on the participants’ confidence as engineering students, 2) how the programs impacted the participants’ views of their neurodiversity, and 3) the profound affect exposure to academic research has on these non-traditional learners to understand engineering topics and expand their knowledge base. Consistently, these neurodiverse students reported gaining a deeper mastery of their subject matters after research, and at a significantly faster rate, than they could attain in the classroom.
Our findings provide evidence of a pressing need for a paradigm shift within engineering education to not only accommodate neurodiverse students, but to help them realize their full potential. Doing so not only benefits the student, but allows society to benefit from their unique, non-conventional thinking and innovative ideas, which can push research forward at a faster pace. It is anticipated that sharing this data may lead to a shift within engineering education from a deficit- to strength-based view of neurodiversity. We hope to inspire others to develop similar programs that highlight the mutually-beneficial nature of the ecosystem we have developed through 10 weeks of summer research.

Authors

Dr. Alexandra Hain University of Connecticut [biography]

Alexandra Hain is an Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut in structural engineering. She received her PhD in Structural Engineering in 2019 from the University of Connecticut. She has an interest in engineering education and workforce development.
Dr. Arash Esmaili Zaghi, P.E. http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2246-2911 National Science Foundation [biography]

Arash E. Zaghi is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Connecticut. In 2009, he received his PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Nevada, Reno. After he was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) at age 33, he began engineering education research aimed at highlighting the importance of neurodiversity for the creativity of our nation’s engineering workforce by promoting a fundamentally strength-based perspective toward diversity. He started his engineering education research endeavor through an NSF RIGEE grant in 2014. The promising findings of this research and the encouraging feedback of the student community motivated him to pursue this line of research in his NSF CAREER award in 2017. Since then, he has built a coalition within the university to expand this work through multiple NSF-funded research grants including IUSE/PFE: RED titled “Innovation Beyond Accommodation: Leveraging Neurodiversity for Engineering Innovation”. Because of the importance of neurodiversity at all levels of education, he expanded his work to graduate STEM education through an NSF IGE grant. In addition, he recently received his Mid-CAREER award through which, in a radically novel approach, he will take on ambitious, transdisciplinary research integrating artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and education research to advance a personalized tool to enhance the participation of middle-school students with dyslexia in STEM disciplines. His efforts on promoting neurodiversity in engineering has been twice recognized by Prism Magazine of the American Society of Engineering Education.
Mr. Alexander T. Grey University of Connecticut

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