2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Evolution of Chemical Engineering Faculty Beliefs and Barriers Toward Active Learning Incorporation

Presented at FDD Technical Session 4: Faculty Beliefs, Identity, and Instructional Change

This research paper investigates the impacts of incorporating inquiry-based laboratory experiences into core undergraduate chemical engineering courses on chemical engineering faculty instructors at a research-intensive university in the Northeast United States. While the benefits of active learning in STEM are well-documented, its adoption among chemical engineering faculty remains slow. Our institution is transforming its curriculum to include hands-on labs and engage faculty as change agents. We present results from a concurrent mixed-methods study that used surveys and interviews with four faculty before and after implementation. Findings reveal the most salient barriers—resources, preparation time, and class time—and how they manifest in context. Future work will track changes in faculty attitudes through longitudinal surveys and interviews. By understanding our faculty’s current enthusiasm for active learning, we can better plan and inform our own change efforts, as well as those in other disciplines and institutions. The author team would prefer to present this paper as a talk.

Authors

Dr. Francis Ledesma http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6280-1394 Cornell University [biography]

Dr. Francis Ledesma is a Postdoctoral Associate in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Cornell University. His research focuses on incorporating active learning into the traditional core chemical engineering curriculum and studying the resulting effects on both students and faculty. He received his Ph.D. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley and his B.S. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Cornell University.
Thomas Patrick Cherry Cornell University
Sabequn Binte Hossain Cornell University
Prof. Allison Godwin http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0741-3356 Cornell University [biography]

Allison Godwin, Ph.D. is the Dr. G. Stephen Irwin '67, '68 Professor in Engineering Education Research in the Robert Frederick Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Cornell University. She is also the Associate Director of the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility and a McCormick Teaching Excellence Institute Research Fellow. Her research focuses on how identity, among other affective factors, influences diverse groups of students to choose engineering and persist in engineering. She also studies how different experiences within the practice and culture of engineering foster or hinder belonging, motivation, and identity development. Dr. Godwin graduated from Clemson University with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Ph.D. in Engineering and Science Education. Her research earned her a National Science Foundation CAREER Award focused on characterizing latent diversity, which includes diverse attitudes, mindsets, and approaches to learning to understand engineering students’ identity development. She has won several awards for her research including the 2021 Chemical Engineering Education William H. Corcoran Award, 2022 American Educational Research Association Education in the Professions (Division I) 2021-2022 Outstanding Research Publication Award, and the 2023 AIChE Excellence in Engineering Education Research Award.

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