2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This complete research paper highlights the experiences of students with open-ended problems through the lens of the theoretical construct of agency. We define agency as the freedom to make decisions or take actions towards a self-directed goal. Professional engineers have to enact agency in their workplace on a regular basis in the form of making tradeoffs between constraints and satisfying requirements, selecting and iterating over multiple problem-solving approaches, and navigating uncertainty, making it a necessary skill for engineers. There is a drive to include more agentic opportunities in engineering curricula, particularly in the early years of the undergraduate program. This work comes from a larger study motivated by supporting instructors in designing agentic opportunities in first-year engineering curriculum.
To be able to design effective agentic opportunities, we must first understand student experiences with such learning environments. Thus, the specific research questions addressed in this paper are: How do students perceive agency in open-ended modeling problems (OEMPs)? What are the outcomes of responding with agency in such problems? We answer these questions using a thematic analysis of 16 semi-structured interviews with students from multiple cohorts of a mechanics course sequence. Multiple OEMPs were designed and implemented to give students experience with making assumptions, assess constraints, and conduct analysis to meet specific requirements. Retrospective interviews were conducted with students to understand their problem-solving process, compare these problems with other assignments within and outside of the course sequence, and describe their affect during such problem-solving. Students were also asked to share their opinions on OEMPs as favorable learning opportunities.
An open-coding approach was used to generate codes interpreting the student experiences in the context of problem-solving agency. We analyzed student responses in the interviews to first find instances where these problems were perceived as agentic opportunities. Students described these problems as having more “freedom” compared to the traditional “book problems,” particularly in the selection from multiple approaches to solving them and having “choices” at various stages of the problem. To answer the second research question, we present several themes of outcomes of such agency namely learning, retention, skill development, and metacognition. Implications for first-year instructors are drawn to outline the benefits of implementing such problems in early engineering education.