2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Analysis of Mindset in Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences for Mechanical Engineering

Presented at ENT-4: Experiential Approaches to Developing Entrepreneurial Mindsets in Engineering

Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) have recently grown in popularity in engineering disciplines as they provide a high impact practice for students. This study examines a series of CUREs and directed research experiences in a small mechanical engineering program. The research team developed a validated survey that was taken by students near the beginning of their research experience and near the end of the process to gauge their level of mindset growth from the research experience. This survey may be used to determine if statistically significant shifts in students' entrepreneurial-mindsets (EM) are attained while participating in Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs).

We tracked a specific mechanical engineering research course offered multiple times at one institution and compared the findings to the larger group of students at the institution participating in similar research experiences. Before the research experience, students felt most confident in critically evaluating credibility of information. After the research experience, students had higher confidence in all EM measures. Our ultimate goal with this research is to find out if CUREs are useful in promoting further learning and retention in the engineering field of study.

Authors

Sydney Casperson [biography]

I am an undergraduate research assistant. Currently finishing a degree in Psychology at Pacific University.
Dr. Heather Dillon http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4467-2306 University of Washington [biography]

Dr. Heather Dillon is Professor and Chair of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Washington Tacoma. Her research team is working on energy efficiency, renewable energy, fundamental heat transfer, and engineering education.
Dr. Jeffrey Walters http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6655-1233 University of Washington [biography]

Dr. Walter's research seeks to develop participatory systems-based decision support techniques to improve engineering practice and policy for sustainable rural and urban infrastructure system design and management in the Global South. His research has bee
Dr. Chris Sharp George Fox University [biography]

I am an associate professor in Mechanical Engineering at George Fox University with an affinity for philosophy, embracing moments, finding beauty, and creating. At the moment, I teach courses focused on materials, manufacturing, and engineering design. I
Dr. Kayt Frisch George Fox University [biography]

Dr. Frisch's research helps students and professionals engage with data in meaningful and insightful ways. She specializes in data relating to creating student learning experiences, biomechanics, and large-scale time-series data analysis.

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

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