2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The Voices of Our Students: Developing a Student Opinion Survey and Process to Support a Healthy STEM Educational Ecosystem

Presented at Faculty Development: Student Engagement

This Research paper describes the development of the Eco-STEM Student Opinion Survey as a tool designed to aid in the development of a healthy STEM educational ecosystem for students, faculty, and staff at a majority-minority Hispanic-Serving Institution. An important aspect of this endeavor is to obtain meaningful feedback from students about their experiences in STEM classrooms. However, current institutional student opinion surveys lack important context instructors require to make decisions as they intentionally construct inclusive classroom spaces. The Eco-STEM project is developing a student opinion survey and process designed to provide meaningful feedback to instructors. Climate, structure, and vibrancy, three aspects that are critical to evaluating the health of any healthy educational ecosystem, were used to develop the survey. This work is situated in the engineering education community’s effort to create more inclusive classroom environments.

The Eco-STEM Student Opinion Survey contains three component parts: a Demographic Survey, a Values Survey, and an Experiences Survey. The Demographic Survey includes items previously shown by the Eco-STEM project to have significant impacts on perceptions of ecosystem health for our students, such as race/ethnicity, gender, living situation, and household income level. The Demographic Survey will be administered to students in their first semester, and participants will be provided with their previous responses each semester and given the opportunity to update them. The Values Survey has been developed based on the Eco-STEM project conceptualization of a healthy educational ecosystem, one that focuses on classroom climate, structure, and vibrancy. The Values Survey measures students’ views on the importance of each aspect. Like the Demographic Survey, it will be administered to students in their first semester and then updated each semester as desired. Instructors will receive reports on their students’ responses to the Demographics and Values Survey at the beginning of each semester, which will provide them with a basis for intentional decision-making and the establishment of an inclusive classroom space. Finally, at the end of each semester, students will be asked to respond to the Experience Survey for each course in which they were enrolled. This survey is also structured around the proposed constructs of climate, structure, and vibrancy. Reports provided to instructors on each of their classes at the end of the semester will provide useful feedback on which to reflect and design intentional changes for future courses.

In this paper, we describe the development of the three component parts of the Eco-STEM
Student Opinion Survey as well as the proposed process of implementation. We also present the results of confirmatory factor analyses on a pilot study of the Values and Experiences Surveys, which measures the construct reliability for the proposed constructs of climate, structure, and vibrancy. Evidence of validity will enable the institutionalization of a new process that is centered around the voices of our students and supports the evolution of an educational ecosystem in which all can thrive.

Authors

Nicholas Rabb California State University Los Angeles [biography]

Nicholas Rabb (he/him) is a postdoctoral researcher in the College of Engineering, Computer Science and Technology at California State University, Los Angeles, where he is working on the NSF-funded Eco-STEM project. He completed his PhD at Tufts University in the areas of computer science and cognitive science, contributing to the development of quantitative models and tools used to study the influence of news media on adoption of misinformation beliefs. His research and academic service work center on critical STEM education, sociotechnical thinking, critical study of misinformation, and systemic change theory and practice.
Dr. Corin L. Bowen http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0910-8902 California State University, Los Angeles [biography]

Corin (Corey) Bowen is an Assistant Professor of Engineering Education, housed in the Department of Civil Engineering at California State University - Los Angeles. Her engineering education research focuses on structural oppression in engineering systems, organizing for equitable change, and developing an agenda of Engineering for the Common Good. She teaches structural mechanics and sociotechnical topics in engineering education and practice. Corey conferred her Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor in April 2021; her thesis included both technical and educational research. She also holds an M.S.E. in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor and a B.S.E. in civil engineering from Case Western Reserve University, both in the areas of structural engineering and solid mechanics.
Kenya Z. Mejia San Francisco State University [biography]

Dr. Kenya Z. Mejia is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at San Francisco State University. Her work focuses on diversity and inclusion in engineering education, particularly in engineering design education.
Prof. Silvia Heubach California State University, Los Angeles
Dr. Gustavo B Menezes California State University, Los Angeles [biography]

Gustavo Menezes is a professor of civil engineering in the College of Engineering, Computer Science, and Technology.
His technical research has focused on subsurface water quality and availability. He is interested in investigating the physicochemical processes related to water infiltration through the vadose zone using lab experiments and computer models. More specifically, his research uses steady-state centrifugation method to simulate and investigate flow conditions in unsaturated soils. Over the years, he has developed a passion for Engineering Education Research and for creating an educational model that meet the demands of Cal State LA students while leveraging their assets. Recently, he has worked with a group of faculty on a National Science Foundation-funded integrated curriculum for sophomores, a service learning summer bridge program for rising sophomores, and the First Year Experience @ ECST, which focuses on supporting students throughout their first year at the college. Currently he leads a team of faculty working on the NSF-funded Eco-STEM project that focuses on Transforming STEM Education using an Asset-Based Ecosystem Model. He also serves as the department chair of the Civil Engineering Department. Since 2009, he has taught courses in environmental engineering and water resources at Cal State LA.
Born in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, Menezes received his Ph.D. in infrastructures and environmental systems from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.
Michael W. Ibrahim California State University, Los Angeles [biography]

Dr. Ibrahim is an Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering as well as the founder and director of the Construction and Engineering Management specialization at Cal State LA. His research and teaching focus on the intersections between engineering, statistics, and business to improve how we design and construct our built environment while sustaining our natural environment. Recently, Dr. Ibrahim has been passionately interested in education research.
Dr. Yilin Feng http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8843-8987 California State University, Los Angeles [biography]

Yilin Feng is an assistant professor at California State University, Los Angeles. She received her Ph.D. degree from Purdue University. Her research interest is in airport simulation, operation, and management.

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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