2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Traditional office hours in undergraduate engineering courses often presents several challenges. Typically structured as one-on-one interactions between the student and the instructor, they tend to be transactional, focusing on quick clarifications rather than deep engagement. This setup may not facilitate collaborative learning or peer-to-peer interaction, missing an opportunity for students to learn from each other’s questions and experiences. Additionally, low attendance is a common issue, which further limits the potential impact of these sessions on student learning and engagement.

We believe that students are motivated to attend office hours due to a combination of multiple recommended practices in STEM education being intentionally implemented in lectures starting from the first interaction. These practices include learning all student names (or as many as possible), being approachable, sometimes funny, being invested in student learning experience, talking to students outside class, chatting about their activities, being willing to help, respecting students and their privacy, pointing out errors gently and announcing strengths, and asking homework questions that promote mental health and self-care.

These practices provide a foundation that sparks students’ interest in lecture topics, inspires them to raise questions, and provokes subsequent discussion to fill gaps in understanding. Moreover, crafting homework questions that encourage students to seek support from the teaching team provides a strong incentive for them to attend office hours.

During office hours, the teaching team upholds the commitments made during lectures, aligning their approach with recommended best practices. The atmosphere of the active group office hours is vibrant and enthusiastic. To accommodate as many students as possible, we utilize a spacious setting with round tables, allowing for easy circulation and support. We promote collaboration and peer learning by organizing seating based on specific topics or homework problem numbers. Office hours typically last for two hours each week, and we also offer individual appointments for students seeking private assistance. This format of office hours can also serve as a space for fostering a sense of community and belonging among students. In departments without a structured cohort system, office hours can become a central hub for students to build connections and develop a supportive network.

Students who participated in this format of office hours have expressed that these sessions were beneficial. During Autumn 2023, in addition to knowledge transfer, office hours evolved into a social space where students could relax, connect with peers, seek career guidance, expand their professional networks, and stay engaged with the teaching team. This was particularly significant since many of these students belonged to engineering departments other than that of the teaching team. Many of these connections persist even a year after the course has been offered.

Our goal is to help educators in deciding whether active group office hours might benefit them and to guide the adaptation and adoption of the approach.

Our research questions are:

“What motivates undergraduate students to attend active group office hours?”

“How can active group office hours contribute to undergraduate students’ course success, engagement, and interest in the discipline?”

We plan to use E E 215: Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington (UW), Seattle as the test case for this study. This a cross-departmental course for various engineering majors, taught by Electrical and Computer Engineering faculty. During the autumn term, class sizes can reach up to 300 students, with more than half typically consisting of mechanical engineering students. We intend to use surveys as our primary measurement tool, administering them biweekly. Additionally, if students express an interest in contributing to the study, we plan to conduct follow-up interviews with them. The research surveys, their administration, and the follow-up interviews will be conducted in collaboration with the Office for the Advancement of Engineering Teaching and Learning (ET&L) at the University of Washington.

When properly administered, these surveys can offer valuable insights specifically for office hours and can also inform best practices for conducting quiz sections and review sessions, which may be of interest to the broader engineering education community.