2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Board 225: Collaborative Research: Research Initiation: Assessing Global Engagement Interventions to Advance Global Engineering Competence for Engineering Formation

Presented at NSF Grantees Poster Session

The purpose of this work is to determine if global engagement interventions without extended international travel can help engineering students develop a global learner mindset and build towards the overarching goal of developing a holistic global engineering educational approach to meet the current and future needs of the engineering profession. The global learner mindset refers to how engineers perceive and interpret the global environment. This mindset is considered foundational for developing global engineering competence, influencing how engineers define problems and formulate and implement solutions. This project has focused on assessing the global learner mindset elements, which include cultural humility, global citizenship, and critical reflection within the context of four distinctly different global engagement interventions. These interventions include international engineering case studies in a quantitative analysis course, intentional formation of multi-national student teams within a capstone design course, a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) research project in a fluid flow course, and an engineering short course coupled to a community engaged project.

The PIs conducted pilot implementations of the four interventions during the spring 2023 semester and collected pre and post assessment data from the Global Engagement Survey (GES) and Global Engineering Competency Scale (GECS) instruments. The results have been used to determine a path forward to improve the next implementation of the interventions during the Spring 2024 semester. This path includes the development of a focus group with students participating in each intervention to obtain a deeper understanding through qualitative data analysis, specifically targeting global engineering mindset formation that will help better contextualize the quantitative results from the GES and GECS instruments.

This work aspires to expand the required development of global competencies in engineering beyond the current research focused on the development of intercultural competence in international or study-abroad experiences. Our focus is on the development of a holistic global engineering education process able to reach all engineering students even when institutions are not able to provide opportunities to fully immerse in other cultures, either because of global crises (such as a pandemic or violent conflicts), financial limitations, or the need for more sustainable methods of globally connecting.

Authors

Prof. Scott Schneider University of Dayton [biography]

Scott J. Schneider is an Associate Professor and the ETHOS Professor for Leadership in Community at the University of Dayton. Schneider is currently focusing his research in the areas of engineering education and community engaged learning.
Prof. Erick S. Vasquez-Guardado http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4811-6155 University of Dayton [biography]

Erick S. Vasquez-Guardado (Erick S. Vasquez) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering at the University of Dayton. Dr. Vasquez earned his B.Sc. degree in chemical engineering (ChE) at Universidad Centroamericana Jose Simeon Canas (UCA) in El Salvador, an M.S. in ChE at Clemson University, and a Ph.D. in ChE at Mississippi State University.
Dr. Corinne H Mowrey University of Dayton
Michael Moulton University of Dayton
Dr. Homero Murzi http://orcid.org/https://0000-0003-3849-2947 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [biography]

Dr. Homero Murzi (he/él/his) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech with honorary appointments at the University of Queensland (Australia) and the University of Los Andes (Venezuela). Homero is the leader of the Engineering Competencies, Learning, and Inclusive Practices for Success (ECLIPS) Lab, where he leads a team focused on doing research on contemporary, culturally relevant, and inclusive pedagogical practices, emotions in engineering, competency development, and understanding the experiences of traditionally marginalized engineering students (e.g., Latinx, international students, Indigenous students) from an asset-based perspective. Homero’s goal is to develop engineering education practices that value the capital that traditionally marginalized students bring into the field and to train graduate students and faculty members with the tools to promote effective and inclusive learning environments and mentorship practices. Homero aspires to change discourses around broadening participation in engineering and promoting action to change. Homero has been recognized as a Diggs Teaching Scholar, a Graduate Academy for Teaching Excellence Fellow, a Global Perspectives Fellow, a Diversity Scholar, a Fulbright Scholar, a recipient of the NSF CAREER award, and was inducted into the Bouchet Honor Society. Homero serves as the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Chair for the Commission on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (CDEI), the Program Chair for the ASEE Faculty Development Division, and the Vice Chair for the Research in Engineering Education Network (REEN). He holds degrees in Industrial Engineering (BS, MS) from the National Experimental University of Táchira, Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Temple University, and Engineering Education (PhD) from Virginia Tech.
Dr. Matthew A Witenstein University of Dayton [biography]

Matthew A Witenstein is an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Educational Administration at University of Dayton

Download paper (1.93 MB)

Are you a researcher? Would you like to cite this paper? Visit the ASEE document repository at peer.asee.org for more tools and easy citations.

» Download paper

« View session