2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Board 333: Lessons Learned Doing Secondary Data Analysis in EER

Presented at NSF Grantees Poster Session

This paper reports on a project funded through the Engineering Education and Centers (EEC) Division of the National Science Foundation. The project is aimed towards building understanding in the engineering education research (EER) community about the potential value of secondary data analysis (SDA) as well as developing guidelines for using this research approach. Changing the paradigm of single-use data collection will require actionable, proven practices for effective, ethical data sharing, coupled with sufficient incentives to both share and use existing data. To that end, this project drew together a team of experts and emerging researchers to develop a shared understanding of SDA, and to conduct two intentional projects using this approach. Significant insights from this work included (i.) deeper insights about the ethical implications of SDA as well specific approaches to address these; (ii.) the need for collaborative relationships between those who collected the data and those who are conducting the SDA; and (iii) the value of ongoing reflective practice by the entire team. We also solicited views from a larger workshop group at the NSF EEC Grantees conference in 2022 which surfaced ongoing concerns expressed by those who are new to this approach and confirmed the need for the engagements with the broader community that have been central to this project.

Authors

Dr. Jennifer M. Case Virginia Tech [biography]

Jennifer Case is Head and Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech, with an honorary position at the University of Cape Town. Her research on the student experience of learning in engineering education has been widely published.
Dr. Holly M. Matusovich Virginia Tech [biography]

Dr. Holly Matusovich is the Associate Dean for Graduate and Professional Studies in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech and a Professor in the Department of Engineering Education where she has also served in key leadership positions. Dr. Matusovich is recognized for her research and leadership related to graduate student mentoring and faculty development. She won the Hokie Supervisor Spotlight Award in 2014, received the College of Engineering Graduate Student Mentor Award in 2018, and was inducted into the Virginia Tech Academy of Faculty Leadership in 2020. Dr. Matusovich has been a PI/Co-PI on 19 funded research projects including the NSF CAREER Award, with her share of funding being nearly $3 million. She has co-authored 2 book chapters, 34 journal publications, and more than 80 conference papers. She is recognized for her research and teaching, including Dean’s Awards for Outstanding New Faculty, Outstanding Teacher Award, and a Faculty Fellow. Dr. Matusovich has served the Educational Research and Methods (ERM) division of ASEE in many capacities over the past 10+ years including serving as Chair from 2017-2019. Dr. Matusovich is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Advances in Engineering Education and she serves on the ASEE committee for Scholarly Publications.
Dr. Marie C. Paretti http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2202-6928 Virginia Tech [biography]

Marie C. Paretti is a Professor of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech, where she directs the Virginia Tech Engineering Communications Center (VTECC). Her research focuses on communication, collaboration, and identity in engineering.
Dr. Lisa Benson http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5517-2289 Clemson University [biography]

Lisa Benson is a Professor of Engineering and Science Education at Clemson University, and the past editor of the Journal of Engineering Education. Her research focuses on the interactions between student motivation and their learning experiences. Her projects include studies of student perceptions, beliefs and attitudes towards becoming engineers and scientists, and their development of problem-solving skills, self-regulated learning practices, and epistemic beliefs. Other projects in the Benson group involve students’ navigational capital, and researchers’ schema development through the peer review process. Dr. Benson is an American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Fellow, and a member of the European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI), American Educational Research Association (AERA) and Tau Beta Pi. She earned a B.S. in Bioengineering (1978) from the University of Vermont, and M.S. (1986) and Ph.D. (2002) in Bioengineering from Clemson University.
Dr. David A. Delaine http://orcid.org/https://0000-0003-2851-5842 The Ohio State University [biography]

Dr. David A. Delaine is an Assistant Professor at The Ohio State University Department of Engineering Education. Within this newly formed department he strives to creatively impact engineering education and society through investigating community-based le
Dr. Shawn S. Jordan http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1639-779X Arizona State University [biography]

SHAWN JORDAN, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of engineering in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University. He teaches context-centered electrical engineering and embedded systems design courses, and studies the use of context an
Dr. Rachel Louis Kajfez http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9745-1921 The Ohio State University [biography]

Dr. Rachel Louis Kajfez is an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at The Ohio State University. She earned her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Civil Engineering from Ohio State and earned her Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Virginia Tech. Her research interests focus on the intersection between motivation and identity, first-year engineering programs, mixed methods research, and innovative approaches to teaching. She is the principal investigator for the Research on Identity and Motivation in Engineering (RIME) Collaborative.
Dr. Susan M. Lord http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2675-5626 University of San Diego [biography]

Susan Lord is Professor and Chair of Integrated Engineering at the University of San Diego. She received a BS from Cornell University in Materials Science and Electrical Engineering (EE) and MS and PhD in EE from Stanford University. Her research focuses on the study and promotion of equity in engineering including student pathways and inclusive teaching. She has won best paper awards from the Journal of Engineering Education, IEEE Transactions on Education, and Education Sciences. Dr. Lord is a Fellow of the IEEE and ASEE and received the 2018 IEEE Undergraduate Teaching Award. She is a coauthor of The Borderlands of Education: Latinas in Engineering. She is a co-Director of the National Effective Teaching Institute (NETI).
Rhonda Papp University of San Diego
Edward Tyler Young http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6703-0464 The Ohio State University [biography]

Edward "Tyler" Young is a graduate student at The Ohio State University currently pursuing a Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering and a Ph.D. in Engineering Education. He graduated summa cum laude from Case Western Reserve University with a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering before embarking on a career in STEM education.
Dr. Yevgeniya V. Zastavker http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7619-3422 Olin College of Engineering [biography]

Yevgeniya V. Zastavker, Ph.D., is a Professor of Physics and Education at Olin College of Engineering and a recent Director of the Research Institute for Experiential Learning Science at Northeastern University. She earned her B.S. degree in Physics from Yale University and holds a Ph.D. in biological physics from MIT.

Dr. Zastavker's research interests lie in the field of STEM education with specific emphasis on innovative pedagogical and curricular practices at the intersection with the issues of gender and diversity. Dr. Zastavker is currently involved in an NSF-supported project to understand students’ motivational attitudes in a variety of educational environments with the goal of improving learning opportunities for students and equipping faculty with the knowledge and skills necessary to create such opportunities. This work is integrated with Dr. Zastavker’s efforts to understand the ways in which such environments may be supported by critically reflective practices and how these environments serve to induct engineering students into educational careers.

One of the founding faculty at Olin College, Dr. Zastavker has been engaged in development and implementation of project-based experiences in fields ranging from science to engineering and design to social sciences.

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