2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This project evaluates if and how an intervention to design a K-12 STEM activity related to water chemistry impacts the innovation self-efficacy (ISE) of junior students enrolled in a required environmental engineering course. ISE is defined as having five behavioral components: questioning, observing, experimenting, idea networking, and associational thinking. In this course, the K-12 STEM activity is designed with a team of 3 to 5 students. The activity requires that the students develop an innovative activity that demonstrates environmental engineering concepts such as acid mine drainage, ocean acidification, and contaminant removal. The student projects are scaffolded throughout the 10 weeks via intermediate submissions and meetings with a K-12 STEM teacher and design mentors. In fall 2022 a pilot of the study was conducted and relied on a quantitative survey instrument that measured ISE, innovation interest (INT), and future innovative work interest (IW). Based on the preliminary findings of factor structure, item reliability, and face validity evaluated by two faculty and two undergraduate students, small changes were made to the quantitative assessment instrument. The revised survey was deployed in the fall of 2023 in a required junior-level test course and a senior-level control course. The senior-level control course consisted of students who took the junior-level course with the K-12 STEM activity in the previous year. In 2023 the K-12 STEM activity intervention also included additional scaffolding through the addition of 3 team-based and 2 individual reflections to understand the process of ISE formation. Pre-post comparisons of the quantitative survey items will be conducted for individual students in the test and control courses. Team and individual reflections from the test course will be analyzed after the course. Potential demographic differences in ISE will be explored. Potential team-level influences will also be evaluated to understand the impact of a team’s ISE score on enhancing an individual team member’s ISE gain. Focus groups and individual interviews with students who participated in the test course will take place in spring 2024. The ISE, INT, and IW of environmental engineering students will be further assessed in spring 2024 through the ISE survey in the environmental engineering capstone design course and a junior-level creativity and entrepreneurship design course. This assessment will compare two different learning experiences on ISE, INT, and IW, the K-12 STEM education activity design with a semester-long, group-based technical design experience. Preliminary results will be presented in the NSF Grantees Poster Session.