2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Board 337: NSF RED: Opening Student Pathways Through the Capability Approach

Presented at NSF Grantees Poster Session

One of the future challenges facing academic disciplines—traditional STEM as well as the social sciences and humanities—is how to prepare students to address complex socio-technical problems that require a range of disciplinary perspectives to address. The National Science Foundation RED project at Bucknell University is focused on enabling students to gain a more intersectional engineering education by expanding individual pathways for students through an electrical and computer engineering degree program. Towards this end the department undertook significant curricular reform prior from 2014 to 2017 to seeking support from the RED program in 2019.

While there has been much discussion of student pathways, the concept is likely under-theorized; that is scholars have difficulty coherently and concisely defining it, and it lacks a commonly agreed upon framework. To better align the difficult work needed to expand student pathways through a curriculum in the highly constrained structure of most engineering degree programs, the Bucknell RED project utilizes the capabilities approach as a theoretical framework. In the capability approach the freedom for individuals to develop capabilities they value is viewed as both the means and end of development. Individuals convert their capabilities—which are real and accessible opportunities—into functionings they have reason to value. Functionings are societally recognized achievements that have real value. The capability approach is used across many disciplines in areas of human development. In the space of engineering education, the capabilities approach shifts the discussion from educational outcomes as the sole goal to additionally include opportunities (capabilities) and achievements (functionings).

This poster presents the results and process by which the capabilities approach framework was specifically adapted for an engineering degree program to create a list of student capabilities. Capabilities are identified at multiple levels, from general human capabilities to those specific to engineering students. The ways the capabilities intersect with the rest of the curriculum is highlighted as are how the capabilities approach can be used to highlight barriers to pursuing a wider array of curricular pathways.

Authors

Dr. Alan Cheville Bucknell University [biography]

Alan Cheville studied optoelectronics and ultrafast optics at Rice University before joining Oklahoma State University working on terahertz frequencies and engineering education. While at Oklahoma State he developed courses in photonics and engineering design. After serving for two and a half years as a program director in engineering education at the National Science Foundation, he served as chair of the ECE Department at Bucknell University. He is currently interested in engineering design education, engineering education policy, and the philosophy of engineering education.
Dr. Stewart Thomas http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5554-1475 Bucknell University [biography]

Stewart J. Thomas received the B.S. and M.Eng. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky in 2006 and 2008, respectively, and the Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina in 2013. He has served on the organizing committee for the IEEE International Conference on RFID series since 2014, serving as the Executive Chair in 2022, with research interests in areas of low-power backscatter communications systems and IoT devices. He is also interested in capabilities-based frameworks for supporting engineering education. He is currently an Assistant Professor at Bucknell University in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Lewisburg, PA USA.
Dr. Rebecca Thomas http://orcid.org/https://0000-0003-2426-4759 Bucknell University [biography]

Rebecca Thomas is the inaugural director for the Pathways Program at Bucknell University, where she oversees the rollout of Bucknell’s ePortfolio initiative. She is also a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering where she instructs the first-year design course for ECE majors. She holds a B.S. and M.Eng. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Louisville and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina State University.
Dr. Michael S Thompson http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3444-8503 Bucknell University [biography]

Michael Thompson, who goes by Stu, is an associate professor and chair of the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Bucknell University, in Lewisburg, PA. He has three degrees in computer engineering from NC State and Virginia Tech with a wealth of experience in computer networking and mobile systems. Over time he has transitioned his focus toward teaching engineering design and undergraduate engineering education. His current work is focused on finding new ways to support student development and learning. He is excited to talk about new ideas in this space and is looking to connect with people who are looking disrupt tradition in this space.

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