2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Leveraging Lived Experiences of Nontraditional Engineering Students: Preliminary Data and Analysis

Presented at Educational Research and Methods Division (ERM) Technical Session 11

The population of nontraditional engineering students (NTES) is increasing across campuses as more students are returning from the workforce to complete their education and students who need to take on part-time or full-time jobs to support their education. Nontraditional students (NTS) are defined as students who satisfy at least one of the seven criteria provided by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) or are older than 24 years of age in an undergraduate program. Research into NTES generally focused on their demographics, the challenges they faced and educational outcomes, and specific methods of teaching NTES. Existing studies on NTES focus on NTES’ deficiencies and methods to improve the outcomes of NTES in engineering programs. None of existing studies in NTES are asset-based that focus on their strengths such as their lived experiences, or leveraging their strengths to increase engaged student learning for all students.

The objective of this study is to identify the characteristics of NTES lived experience that can be incorporated into engineering classroom to increase engagement for all students. Interviews with NTES were conducted to identify the characteristics of NTES past experience that were of interest to traditional engineering students in their engineering courses and classroom. Interviews were transcribed and coded for analysis. This work-in-progress paper presents the preliminary results from the interviews with NTES.

Authors

Dr. Ean H. Ng http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9016-3097 Oregon State University [biography]

Ean H. Ng is an assistant professor at Oregon State University. She received her Ph.D. in Systems and Engineering Management from Texas Tech University. Her research interests include engineering economic analysis, high reliability organization, safety engineering, peer effects in workplace safety, and performance measurement.
Dr. Ganapathy S. Natarajan http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7905-9966 University of Wisconsin, Platteville [biography]

Ganapathy Natarajan, Ph.D., CPEM is an Associate Professor in Industrial Engineering at University of Wisconsin – Platteville. He received his Ph.D. in Systems and Engineering Management from Texas Tech University. Gana’s research interests are in engineering education, learning analytics, and novel use of data analytics in decision making.
Ingrid Scheel Oregon State University [biography]

Ingrid Scheel is a Project Instructor at Oregon State University. She emphasizes diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in her courses. Scheel volunteers for organizations including but not limited to: ChickTech, Tech Trek, Willamette Innovator's Network, InnovationX, Redefining Women in Tech, and the Society of Women Engineers. She is the past president of Optica, Columbia Section, and contributes to the International Society for Optics and Photonics as a committee member, reviewer, and author. Scheel co-chairs the Effective and Inclusive Teaching Practices committee in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Her industry experience includes prototype development, test article instrumentation, data acquisition, data analysis, and reporting.
Chukwudiebube Atagbuzia Oregon State University
Nathan Mast University of Wisconsin, Platteville

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