2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Uncovering Learning Outcome Profiles in a Multi-Institutional STEM Outreach Program: A Latent Profile Analysis Approach

Presented at Mentorship and Student Support

This empirical full paper reports the results of statistical analyses from a large mixed-methods evaluation study examining the learning outcomes of diverse students participating in a multi-institutional summer engineering enrichment program. The summer camp program was jointly implemented by a Predominantly White Institution (PWI) and a Historically Black College and University (HBCU). The study utilizes post–summer camp survey data collected from 140 middle and high school students during the 2023 and 2024 program cycles. The survey included self-reported learning outcome measures theoretically grounded in Bloom’s Taxonomy, Cognitive, Affective, and Psychomotor [1] [2], to assess students’ perceived gain in knowledge, motivation, and hands-on skill development resulting from the summer camp activities, as well as other instruments for students’ camp experiences and STEM career interests. By employing a Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) combined with multinomial logistic regression, we identified distinct subgroups of camp participants based on students’ self-reported learning outcomes and heterogeneity in their camp experiences. Our analytic outcomes elucidate how varying levels of engagement, motivation, and experiential quality shape the learning trajectories of different student subgroups, challenging the common assumption of a homogeneous student population in summer enrichment curriculum development and implementation.

Authors

Sohee Kim University of South Alabama [biography]

Dr. Sohee Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Counseling and Instructional Sciences at the University of South Alabama. Her research expertise spans item response theory, dimensionality, scale development and validation, differential item functioning, and machine learning in the educational and psychological measurement field. Additionally, she had an experience related to AI perception and AI literacy research. Currently, she serves as PD and Co-PD of two internal grants at the University of South Alabama; one is the project related to the differential item functioning, and the other is the project related to the scale development (Social Justice Behavioral Measure Validation Study).
Dr. Jae Hoon Lim http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8167-1866 University of North Carolina at Charlotte [biography]

Dr. Jae Hoon Lim is a Professor of Educational Research at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Her research explores the dialogical process of identity construction among students of color and examines the impact of sociocultural factors on their academic experiences. She has served as a co-PI for multiple federal grant projects, including a 1.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation. Her research has been published in several premier journals, including the Journal of Educational Psychology, Journal of Higher Education, and Race, Ethnicity, and Education. She is a contributing author to several books published by Oxford University Press and the University of California Press. She served as President for the Korean American Educational Researchers Association, including President in 2013-2014, and Chair of the KAERA Board of Directors in 2019-2020.
Mr. Jerry Lynn Dahlberg Jr http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2778-5349 University of Tennessee, Space Institute [biography]

Jerry Dahlberg is the Director of Research at the University of Tennessee Space Institute. Prior to joining UTSI, he was an Assistant Teaching Professor and Senior Design Committee Chair at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He received a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering Science in 2014, M.S. in Mechanical Engineering in 2016 and PhD in Mechanical Engineering in 2018 from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Download paper (429 KB)

Are you a researcher? Would you like to cite this paper? Visit the ASEE document repository at peer.asee.org for more tools and easy citations.

» Download paper

« View session

For those interested in:

Broadening Participation in Engineering and Engineering Technology
Pre-College
Socio-Economic Status