2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Empowering Adolescents from Migratory Backgrounds with Gamification and Culturally-Responsive Engineering Design Instruction: A summary of 2-years of effort (EHR:BCSER)

Presented at NSF Grantees Poster Session II

This paper summarizes the effectiveness of an NSF-funded project (NSF EHR:BSCER: 2225306), which used culturally responsive and gamified instructional strategies to support migratory adolescents’ STEM interest, self-efficacy, and STEM career aspirations. A migratory adolescent is a child/youth whose parent(s) is a migratory agricultural worker. There are approximately half a million migratory children navigating the American education system, and they face unique challenges—including frequent relocations, English language learners, and disrupted schooling—that significantly impact their academic outcomes and career aspirations. Few migratory youth in the Southwest region receive academically enriching services during the summer months, and many of these services are not STEM-focused.

This project created a culturally responsive, gamified engineering design activity for migratory high school students as a way to (a) provide meaningful and culturally relevant engineering learning, (b) support students’ engineering identity, (c) develop critical STEM agency, and (d) leverage prior cultural knowledge to solve engineering problems.

Our approach was unique in that we combined elements of gamification (i.e., a simulation storyline with a design challenge and rewards) and dimensions of culturally responsive instruction by Gay (2010). These dimensions included validation, empowerment, socially transformative, multidimensional, comprehensive, and inclusive. The activity took 1.5 hours to complete and was an in-person activity with two parts: an online engineering design story that used students’ cultural backgrounds as the backdrop and a hands-on Arduino building activity.

This three-year project is in its second year. We have delivered the activity during the summer, multiple times across two sites in the Southwest and Pacific Northwest, to migratory high school students (n = 222). Pre-and-post surveys were collected to understand if there were changes in students’ understanding of engineering, interest, self-efficacy beliefs, recognition, and perception of using engineering as a tool for social justice. Pairwise t-tests and mixed ANOVA were performed to evaluate if there were significant changes in students’ perceptions of their capabilities before and after the activity.

The findings from this project demonstrate that the culturally responsive, gamified engineering activity significantly improved self-efficacy, interest, and general confidence in engineering among migratory students. Notably, all students reported substantial increases in their understanding of engineering, tinkering self-efficacy, interest in engineering, engineering agency, engineering recognition, and design self-efficacy. A particularly inspiring result was the substantial increase in girls’ tinkering self-efficacy beliefs and their confidence to academically excel in engineering compared to boys, effectively closing the gender gap present in the pre-survey data.

This project provides engaging engineering education opportunities to an important but underserved population of students. The activity’s effectiveness stemmed from its culturally responsive and gamified approach, which resonated with the unique experiences of migratory high school students. By providing a supportive space for problem scoping, brainstorming, prototyping, and evaluating, we created an environment where students could apply their diverse perspectives to engineering challenges. The findings underscore the importance of engineering education activities that leverage the sociocultural realities and lived experiences of migratory students, demonstrating that when educational content is made relevant and accessible, it can significantly impact students’ perceptions of and engagement with STEM fields.

Authors

Dr. Dina Verdin http://orcid.org/https://0000-0002-6048-1104 Arizona State University, Polytechnic Campus [biography]

Dina Verdín, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Engineering at the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University. She graduated from San José State University with a BS in Industrial Systems Engineering and from Purdue University with an MS in Industrial Engineering and PhD in Engineering Education. Her research program promotes equity and inclusion in engineering by confronting the pervasive barriers facing minoritized students. Her work addresses the challenges Latinx, first-generation college students, and women in engineering face by focusing on two research strands: access and persistence. Dr. Verdín seeks to create culturally responsive opportunities that broaden engineering access while simultaneously dismantling the systemic obstacles that hinder minoritized students’ identity development and persistence. With this work, Dr. Verdín is committed to transforming engineering education and ensuring that all minoritized students can thrive. She currently has three active grants with the National Science Foundation aimed at supporting the mission of her research program. She has won several awards, including the 2022-2023 Outstanding Research Publication Award by the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Division I, the 2022 ASEE ERM Apprentice Faculty Grant, and the 2018 ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Best Diversity Paper Award.
Tim Wells Arizona State University, Polytechnic Campus [biography]

Timothy C. Wells (PhD, Arizona State University) is a Postdoctoral Research Scholar in the Polytechnic School at Arizona State University. He has expertise in embodied learning, restorative practices, and cultural and education. His research draws upon social theory, historical context, and experimental methodologies to bring insight and innovation to the challenges of contemporary schooling. He has published in Teachers College Press, Qualitative Inquiry, and Discourse: A Journal of Culture and Education.
Ulises Juan Trujillo Garcia http://orcid.org/0009-0001-2863-3964 Arizona State University [biography]

Ulises Trujillo Garcia (he/him/él) holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and a master’s in engineering education. He is currently pursuing a PhD in engineering education at Arizona State University, where his research centers on the experiences of individuals from migratory/seasonal farmworker backgrounds in engineering. Ulises explores the unique funds of knowledge these individuals acquire while growing up and how they leverage these skills to navigate engineering spaces. He was named a fellow of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program 2022; he is also a former fellow for the Station1 Frontiers Fellowship, the Micron Academy for Inclusive Leadership, and HACU ¡Adelante! Leadership Institute. In the summer of 2021, he initiated a scholarship for migrant students in Eastern Oregon to support their pursuit of higher education. As a first-generation, low-income Latino from a farm-working family, Ulises is deeply committed to his community, dedicating his time to advancing educational and leadership causes.
Andrea Lidia Castillo Arizona State University [biography]

A.Lili Castillo is a second-year graduate student in the Engineering Education Systems and Design PhD program at Arizona State University. Lili is a recipient of the 2022 National Science Foundation’s Graduate research fellowship. Her research interests include engineering identity formation, high-impact learning experiences, and Latino/a/x & first-generation college student pathways in engineering. Through her research, Lili hopes to amplify the voices of historically underrepresented populations in engineering to foster an inclusive space in engineering education for diverse students through asset-based and culturally relevant approaches.

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 22, 2025, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 25, 2025

« View session