2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Work in Progress: Opportunities for Engineering Undergraduates to Develop Non-Technical Professional Skills during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Presented at Work-in-Progress Session: Supporting Students To, Through, and Beyond Transitions

This work-in-progress (WIP) paper aims to elucidate how students have developed professional skills since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and who are the people who have provided skill development opportunities. Because of the way social distancing affected engineering education during the pandemic, developing professional skills may have been a challenge for engineering students. While online courses and virtual meetings allowed students to remain in contact with faculty and each other, the opportunities to continue having deep relationships (i.e., strong ties) were sparse. Our paper presents an early look at findings from the qualitative phase of an explanatory mixed methods study conducted with 1,234 undergraduates from 13 schools in the US. Our ongoing thematic qualitative analysis reveals that the changes that accompanied social distancing and periods of emergency remote teaching caused by COVID-19 have reinforced different opportunities to develop professional skills than prior to the pandemic. While some students expressed they had fewer opportunities to develop professional skills, participants also identified opportunities to (1) hone written communication skills when in-person discussions were reduced and (2) leverage knowledge from family members to continue developing professionally. Our next steps include finishing the qualitative analysis phase of the project and mixing the qualitative and quantitative data to develop overarching findings that the engineering education community can use to understand how students’ professional skills develop and how to promote that development even during times of educational disruption

Authors

Dr. Giselle Guanes Melgarejo The Ohio State University [biography]

Giselle (she/ella) is a postdoctoral scholar at Ohio State University and editorial assistant for the Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering (JWM). While she was born and raised in Lambaré, Paraguay, she earned her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Kansas State University and her Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Ohio State University. Her roots are constantly inspiring her to explore and dive deeper into how engineering design intersects with the Latinx culture, and especially how such intersection can push engineering to be more socially just. As such, she is part of a local nonprofit organization, See Brilliance, which seeks to provide youth with STEM educational opportunities rooted in Black and Latinx cultures.
Ms. Victoria Bill New York University [biography]

Victoria Bill is the Director of the MakerSpace Lab and an Adjunct Professor in the First-Year Engineering Program at NYU Tandon School of Engineering. She studied electrical engineering and received her B.S. from the Ohio State University and her M.S. from the University of Texas at Austin. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Engineering Education from the Ohio State University.
Dr. Julie P Martin The Ohio State University [biography]

Julie P. Martin is the Director of the Engineering Education Transformations Institute at University of Georgia. Julie is a Fellow of ASEE and the editor-in-chief of Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering.
Ms. Tiantian Li http://orcid.org/0009-0001-4870-6008 Purdue University, West Lafayette [biography]

Tiantian Li (Olivia) is a dedicated Ph.D. student in Engineering Education at Purdue University. She received her Bachelor's degree in Biological Engineering, with a concentration in Pharmaceutical Processing Engineering. Currently, she is pursuing her Master's degree in Industrial Engineering. Tiantian has significant research experience in instrument development and validation analysis. Her research interests lie in developing reliable and valid measures for assessing complex engineering competencies, such as systems thinking skills. More particularly, she’s interested in assessing engineering students’ socio-technical systems thinking skills during their design process. In addition to her work on instrument development, Tiantian is also passionate about exploring the experiences of international scholars in the United States
Dr. Kerrie A Douglas http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2693-5272 Purdue University, West Lafayette [biography]

Dr. Douglas is an Associate Professor in the Purdue School of Engineering Education. Her research is focused on improving methods of assessment in engineering learning environments and supporting engineering students.
Dr. Eric Holloway http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0343-1709 Purdue University, West Lafayette [biography]

Dr. Eric Holloway currently serves as the Sr. Director of Industry Research in the College of Engineering at Purdue, where he focuses on industry research in the College of Engineering. He also holds a courtesy faculty appointment in the School of Engineering Education and the School of Mechanical Engineering.

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