2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Work-in-progress: Evaluating student support in a civil and environmental engineering program

Presented at Student Services & Supports

Student support services like faculty interaction, extracurricular activities, peer-interaction, professional development, and additional support likely change over the course of study for an engineering student at a large, regional university. Transitions from higher support in a general engineering program in the first year into fewer supports in specific engineering majors in the second-year present challenges that need to be explored. This work in progress paper will examine connections between engineering identity and the role of student support services over the course of a four-year civil and environmental engineering program. A survey of undergraduate engineering students will investigate students’ perceptions about student support services and engineering identity at various stages in an undergraduate civil engineering experience: 1) first year in a general engineering program, 2) second year after moving into the civil engineering major, 3) third year civil engineering student, and 4) fourth year civil engineering student. Connections between engineering identity and the role of student support services as well as relationships and differences between these variables will be examined for each cohort. Results from this research will help identify student support variables that influence perceived engineering identity during different stages of an undergraduate engineering program. This new knowledge may aid colleges and universities in developing or refining the support structures necessary to improve retention at their institutions.

Authors

Dr. Leslie Hopkinson West Virginia University [biography]

Dr. Leslie Hopkinson is an Associate Professor in the Wadsworth Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in the Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, specializing in water resources. She received her B.S. in Biological and Agricultural Engineering at Louisiana State University and her Ph.D. in Biological Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech. Her research is related to hydrology, reclamation, ecological engineering, and engineering education.
Lynnette Michaluk West Virginia University [biography]

Dr. Lynnette Michaluk is a social sciences researcher in the West Virginia University Center for Excellence in STEM Education. Her research and evaluation efforts focus on workforce development in STEM. She is Primary Investigator of the National Science Foundation Secure and Upgrade Computer Science in Classrooms through an Ecosystem with Scalability & Sustainability and serves as research mentor on two National Science Foundation Building Capacity in STEM Education Research projects. She serves as evaluator on several funded projects including National Science Foundation RII Track 2 FEC: Enabling Factory to Factory (F2F) Networking for Future Manufacturing, Department of Education Title III Strengthening Potomac State College, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration OSTEM Plant the Moon Challenge.
Dr. Lizzie Santiago West Virginia University [biography]

Lizzie Y. Santiago, Ph.D., is the Director of the Fundamentals of Engineering Program in the Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources at West Virginia University. She holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and completed postdoctoral training in Neural Tissue Engineering and Molecular Neurosciences. She has managed several NSF-funded educational research projects, including those focused on studying critical thinking, self-regulation, metacognition, problem-solving, and student retention in engineering. Dr. Santiago is an active member of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) and has delivered numerous presentations on improving student learning and retention in engineering. She has received several teaching awards, including the 2015 Teacher of the Year Award and the 2017 WVU Foundation Outstanding Teacher Award.
Aimee Morewood West Virginia University [biography]

Aimee Morewood, PhD. is a Professor and Program Coordinator of Literacy Education in the School of Education, College of Applied Human Sciences at West Virginia University. Dr. Morewood has received awards for her research from the Journal of Research in Childhood Education, the Classroom Observation SIG of the American Educational Research Association, the Literacy Research Association, and the Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers. She has over 70 peer-reviewed and public scholarship publications and over 90 presentations at national and regional conferences. Morewood has secured over $800,000 in grant funding and has served as the PI and Co-PI of multiple Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation grants, was a Co-PI on a West Virginia Department of Education grant and is the Co-PI on a National Science Foundation grant focused on engineering education. She has also been invited as an external evaluator for higher education programs and funded grant projects.

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