2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This study evaluates the recruitment process of a student-led undergraduate research program in aerospace engineering founded on vertically integrated projects. The program, built through a partnership with a prominent aerospace manufacturer, aims to provide selected students with an enriching experience that expands perspectives on relevant issues in aerospace propulsion. Students work in small teams of 3 to 6 on projects that continue semester to semester. Since all projects within the program are designed, managed, and executed by students, recruiting new participants for continuing projects is crucial to the group. Therefore, current students work with faculty to identify, recruit, and mentor other undergraduate students to continue the established projects in subsequent years. The goal of this study is to explore students’ experiences during the recruitment process and to identify areas of improvement for future years. The study will leverage the tenets of Expectancy-Value Theory to understand how the process of recruitment is valued by students involved in recruiting, applicants to the program, and those students in the program who were not involved in recruiting. A survey will be conducted to quantify the attainment value, intrinsic value, utility value, and cost of different recruitment activities for the three student groups. All data will go through a process of thematic analysis to identify trends in the students’ experiences. The results from the thematic analysis will inform suggestions for recruitment practices for the future generations of the program. The findings will provide a new understanding of recruitment practices for undergraduate research groups, especially groups within aerospace engineering.