2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The impact of implementing community engagement projects in a first-year engineering course

Presented at First-Year Programs Division (FPD) Technical Session 6: Learning by Doing - Contextual and Community-Based Engineering

This complete evidence-based practice paper describes the effects of implementing a community-based learning project (also commonly referred to as service learning) on students’ perceptions of a first-year general engineering course. A partnership was formed with six staff members in the university’s facilities department who manage campus projects and other large-scale initiatives wherein each partner helped develop an authentic project theme related to their work for student teams to investigate throughout the Spring 2024 semester. This paper builds upon work described in a previous a work-in-progress that discussed the details of the project development and implementation process and analyzes the results of data collected during the semester to compare how students’ perceptions were affected by these types of projects.
The motivation for this study is driven by the overarching goal of providing an engaging and authentic experience for students as they begin their engineering studies. Instructors have found that, often, students struggle to appreciate the importance of non-technical learning outcomes in these courses, such as teamwork, project management, and effective technical communication skills. The prior study on which this paper is based investigated best practices and lessons learned with respect to planning and implementing service learning projects, finding a high degree of alignment between the course learning outcomes and the goals of community-based projects. This study provides insight into students’ reception of these projects by analyzing data collected during Spring 2024, when the projects were implemented, and comparing this to available information from prior classes where other types of projects were used.
We collected quantitative and qualitative data about student perceptions of their projects towards the end of the semester through surveys. Quantitative questions were aligned with the Course Acceptance Model (CAM) framework, which the prior study found to be well-situated for this study and intended to collect students’ views of the course across the four constructs of ease, usefulness, attitude, and future use. This instrument included questions that had been used to survey students in prior semesters to provide a comparative analysis of the results. In addition to these questions, students were prompted with several open-ended reflection questions. Responses from these were used to help better understand the results of the quantitative data analysis.
The results of this data analysis show that students responded positively to the projects and formed a deeper appreciation of the non-technical skills required to succeed in the field of engineering. The paper seeks to provide guidance to others who may be interested in implementing similar projects by discussing best practices and lessons learned throughout the implementation process in this class based on feedback from students and their project sponsors.

Authors

Matthew James http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1057-1048 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [biography]

Matthew James is an Associate Professor of Practice in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech, where he currently serves as the department’s first-year program coordinator. Since joining in 2017, Matt’s work has centered on teaching and curriculum development for the general engineering program, with a focus on foundational experiences for first-year students.
He holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Civil Engineering from Virginia Tech and is a licensed Professional Engineer in the State of Virginia. Before moving into academia, Matt worked in land development planning and design, contributing to projects in stormwater management, airport design, floodplain modeling, site development, and construction document preparation.
In his teaching, Matt supports a project-based learning approach to help students develop professional and technical skills relevant to engineering practice. He has contributed to scholarship of teaching and learning through research interests that include first-year engineering education, service learning, and international engagement. In addition to teaching and research, he serves as the faculty advisor to several student design teams, including the Virginia Tech chapter of Engineers in Action.
Dr. Juan David Ortega Álvarez http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6110-0791 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [biography]

Juan David Ortega Álvarez is a Collegiate Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech and an Affiliate Courtesy Professor at Universidad EAFIT (Colombia). He holds a Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Purdue University and an M.S. in Process Engineering and Energy Technology from Hochschule Bremerhaven. With over 10 years of experience teaching undergraduate and graduate courses, Juan also has more than 6 years of professional experience as a practicing engineer, primarily focused on the design and improvement of chemical processing plants. His research interests center on the scholarship of teaching and learning, collaborating with engineering faculty across disciplines to help assess and enhance their teaching practices.
Dr. Michelle Soledad http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2491-6684 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [biography]

Michelle Soledad, Ph.D. is a Collegiate Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech. Her research and service interests include teaching and learning experiences in fundamental engineering courses, faculty development and support initiatives – including programs for the future engineering professoriate, and leveraging institutional data to support reflective teaching practices. She has degrees in Electrical Engineering (B.S., M.Eng.) from the Ateneo de Davao University in Davao City, Philippines, where she previously held appointments as Assistant Professor and Department Chair for Electrical Engineering. She also previously served as Director for Communications and International Engagement at the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech, Lecturer at the Department of Engineering Education at The Ohio State University, and Assistant Professor at the Department of Integrated Engineering at Minnesota State University, Mankato. She holds a Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Virginia Tech.
Cassie Wallwey http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1318-1843 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [biography]

Dr. Cassie Wallwey is a Collegiate Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech. Her research interests center on student-centered and inclusive learning practices and principles including student engagement in learning, feedback and assessment, self-regulation of learning, and student motivation. Cassie got her PhD in Engineering Education from Ohio State University and her MS and BS in Biomedical Engineering from Wright State University.

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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