2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program supports active research participation by community college (CC) students with a focus on Smart Engineering, including: Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning, Smart Health, Smart Materials, and Smart Infrastructure. The program is offered as 10-week non-residential summer research experience for local community college students. The program also features high-quality interactions of students with faculty and/or other research mentors, access to appropriate facilities and professional development opportunities, an opportunity to tap the nation's diverse student talent pool, and broaden participation in science and engineering. Th participating CC students are also introduced to and encouraged to transfer to 4-year college education to enhance their future employment and increase participation of the underreported in STEM education.

This extended abstract presents the results from a retrospective pre-post exit survey by the grant external evaluator of participants in the xxx University Pathways REU in engineering, as funded by the National Science Foundation. This project supports regional community college students at xx University for summer work in engineering research, placing the participants in research labs working on cutting edge problems in AI/machine learning, smart infrastructures, smart materials, and smart health.

The evaluation research questions include:

• To what extent was the project successful at engendering growth across the four target constructs?
• What aspects of the summer experience are reported as being most beneficial?
• What do participating students say about their summer experience more generally?
• How do the 2024 cohort’s results compare with those of the previous two cohorts?

The key findings include:

• The REU exit pre-post surveys again showed consistently positive results across the intended outcomes with moderate to large effect sizes.
• The importance of conducting research under the guidance of a faculty mentor was viewed by the students as essential to the summer’s experience.
• The 2024 REU group expressed a strong association between gains in self-confidence, understanding of engineering and a commitment to continue in engineering.
• The 2024 evaluation findings are generally consistent with those of the previous two years, with the 2024 group reporting the most positive effects of participation among the three cohorts.

If accepted, the extended abstract will delve into the details of the survey questions, statistical sampling and methods, and the statistical results analysis.