2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Translating Evidence on Asset-based Pedagogies into Engineering Education Practice

Presented at ERM Technical Session: Equity & Accessibility in Engineering Education

In this evidence-based practice full paper, we describe an inventory of asset-based strategies co-produced by study participants and researchers in an ongoing, multi-year research project at a large, public, land-grant, Hispanic-Serving Institution. Asset-based approaches emphasize students' inherent strengths, lived experiences, and cultural identities as foundations for cultivating inclusive learning environments as well as promoting skill development among students. Despite promising evidence supporting the role of asset-based strategies in fostering student engagement and success, the uptake and adoption of such equity-centered practices are often limited in engineering education. The challenges associated with this research-to-practice gap can be attributed to a multitude of factors including curricular constraints, insufficient professional development opportunities for faculty, and a lack of practical, readily available guidelines for implementation [3]. While some training programs and institutional support do exist, they primarily focus on general active learning strategies and often fail to reach all engineering faculty, particularly those who may be less engaged in equity-related initiatives. Consequently, these programs fall short of making meaningful connections to relevant evidence and equipping faculty with the necessary tools and frameworks to implement asset-based practices effectively. To address these shortcomings, the overall project involves (a) organizing faculty professional development retreats aimed at promoting critical awareness of the evidence and potential of asset-based practices, (b) co-designing and implementing asset-based pedagogical innovations in courses with an emphasis on engineering design, and (c) engaging both student and faculty participants from those courses in appreciative interviews to assess the alignment between educational innovations and student experiences. In this paper, we present an inventory of strategies derived from our work to support the uptake and adoption of asset-based practices, with a focus on engineering design education.

Authors

Vignesh Subbian http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9974-8382 The University of Arizona [biography]

Vignesh Subbian is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Systems and Industrial Engineering, member of the BIO5 Institute, and a Distinguished Fellow of the Center for University Education Scholarship at the University of Arizona. His professional areas of interest include medical informatics, healthcare systems engineering, and broadening participation and promoting servingness in engineering, biomedicine, and computing, particularly at land-grant and Hispanic Serving Institutions. Subbian’s educational research is focused on asset-based practices, ethics education, and formation of professional identities.
Gimantha N Perera http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4779-1087 The University of Arizona [biography]

Gimantha Perera is a Sri Lankan born researcher and educator from NC State University. He was inspired to be an engineer by his maternal grandfather Anil, who would consistently come home from work covered in grease and grime after climbing bodily into machines to fix them. He shares a promise with his grandfather, now departed, that he will continue to innovate, contribute, and revolutionize industry through engineering and teaching. His world view that can be summed up in two statements: “Just because it works, doesn’t mean in can’t be better.” – Shuri, Black Panther and “First, think. Second, believe. Third, dream. And finally, dare.” – Walt Disney. He obtained a Bachelor of Science in Industrial and Systems Engineering from North Carolina State University while a part of the Accelerated Bachelors-Master’s program. He proceeded to finish his master’s at North Carolina State University under the guidance of Dr. Julie Ivy and Dr. Karen Chen. “I want my life to have mattered, I want to look back and feel like I made a difference in my brief time here. I know I won’t always be able to do this but I want to look back at the people in my life and not regret the ways in which I interacted with them; I want them to remember me and remember me fondly”. Emmerson said “The purpose of life is not [merely] to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”, I hope to live up to that ideal in the service of science and my community.
Ann Shivers-McNair University of Arizona [biography]

Ann Shivers-McNair is an associate professor in the College of Information Science at the University of Arizona, on the lands of the Tohono O'odham and Pascua Yaqui.
Francesca Lopez
Hannah Budinoff http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5556-4389 The University of Arizona [biography]

Hannah Budinoff is an Assistant Professor of Systems and Industrial Engineering at the University of Arizona. Her research interests include additive manufacturing, geometric manufacturability analysis, design for manufacturing, and engineering education.

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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