Center for Research in Engineering Education Online (CREEdO)

We proposed to leverage GenderMag, a method for de-biasing technology, to change online College of Engineering such that students had inclusive experiences.

We aimed to: 1) Help COE faculty and Ecampus instructional designers create inclusive online courseware by creating an automated tool to evaluate and identify inclusivity issues in Canvas course navigation and structure, assignments, and student learning activities, and providing training on GenderMag concepts to enable faculty/designers to find inclusivity issues in their courseware; 2) Educate COE faculty on how to integrate GenderMag concepts into their online COE curricula.

Extended Reality (XR) simulations and learning tools have been suggested to be effective means of enhancing conceptual thinking within engineering, while simultaneously addressing issues of motivation and social interaction. This project proposes a study to increase the scientific knowledge related to XR’s integration into engineering courses. 

Task one involves a design-based research approach to develop a functional learning module to be used across several engineering disciplines. Task two involves a formative assessment evaluating the effectiveness of the integrated XR module on engineering students’ learning of concepts related to spatial ability.

The project team developed and assessed the use of a virtual laboratory for (1) eliciting engineering epistemic practices not easily accomplished with in-person university laboratories and (2) increasing the accessibility of laboratory content for students studying in online environments. A virtual laboratory was developed based on a physical lab (jar testing) common in most undergraduate and graduate environmental engineering programs.

The team partnered with Oregon State University instructors to deliver both the physical and virtual versions of the jar testing laboratory, comparing student motivation, epistemic practices, and development of engineering identity through surveys and discourse analysis of video-recorded observations of the team.

We developed a practical pedagogy and technological infrastructure for brownfield software development projects, in which teams of undergraduate students added features and fixed bugs in a legacy code base, so that they were better prepared with the skills needed for professional software development activities.

This goal was supported by the development of a web application called BP Pro (Brownfield Project Professional) that interfaced with GitHub and Slack. We also conducted rigorous empirical research, grounded in log data of student teams’ software development processes and the software artifacts they produced, to investigate both the educational effectiveness of pedagogical interventions, and the relationships between student teams’ software processes and products.

This project will derive the desirable qualities of four software engineering artifacts produced by individuals in team software projects: issues, commits, pull requests, and code reviews.

We will accomplish this by 1) developing a valid and reliable method for assessing software engineering artifacts and 2) making the assessment of students’ software development artifacts practical through a software tool that enables students and instructors to quickly and easily evaluate random samples of students’ artifacts during team software projects.

This research aims to explore how undergraduate engineering students can apply their knowledge from education to solve complex design problems in professional settings. We define this as knowledge mobilization. Using the innovative Legitimation Code Theory (LCT), we will evaluate knowledge mobilization in three contexts with increasing complexity: 1) a junior design course, 2) an engineering internship, and 3) a capstone experience. We will also create coaching tools to bridge knowledge mobilization gaps in engineering design. This program fosters a metacognitive mindset in professional engineers, helping them adapt theoretical models to new and uncertain engineering challenges.

In engineering education, visits to engineering sites are seen to be vital to providing students with authentic learning experiences. This project is exploring the potential for virtual reality (VR) to be used to simulate site visits of construction sites in civil engineering scenarios.

Engagement is known to be a key factor in students’ subjective experiences and objective learning outcomes in online courses. This research aimed to identify the factors that contributed to student engagement in online STEM courses and develop a scale to measure these factors.

Based on student interviews and thematic analysis, eight key constructs were identified: Interactivity and Connectivity, Instructor Availability, Connecting Knowledge, Self-directedness, Course Difficulty, Academic Proactivity, Course Organization, and Resources. Researchers utilized this scale to understand social and cognitive engagement. Educators used this instrument’s results to improve their online courses.

Research suggests that students in smaller cohorts develop stronger ties and camaraderie, but it's unclear if this holds for online courses. To explore this, we conducted a study varying the sizes of three online computer science courses: one entry-level, one 200-level, and one 300-level. We categorized sizes as “small” (< 50) and “large” (> 250).  

We measured student engagement, sense of community, and success by collecting data on grades, persistence intention, attitudes, and subjective experiences through interviews. Preliminary results indicate that both students and instructors noted a lack of “critical mass” in smaller classes, with students viewing “community” primarily as receiving academic support rather than building camaraderie.

The research aims to identify and create best practices for fully virtual engineering capstone design courses. These courses are traditionally hands-on and in-person, but the goal is to make them accessible online. The project will support students and sponsors in achieving educational requirements, project deliverables, and student success. It will involve collaborative techniques for project mentors, student teams, and determine the type and scope of projects suitable for remote collaboration. A pilot of fully online capstone projects will be offered, with feedback collected from students and sponsors through interviews.

This research aims to evaluate student engagement in a virtual lab focused on radiation detection and measurement. Conducted within a graduate-level course, the study will assess the impact of interactive features such as group work, instructor feedback, and chat tools on student involvement. By utilizing surveys, interviews, and chat data, the research will analyze varying levels of student participation and their correlation with learning outcomes. The objective is to enhance virtual lab experiences in Nuclear Science and Engineering education while offering recommendations for improving student engagement in online learning environments. Findings will be disseminated through academic journals and conferences.

This research aims to bridge the gap between student engagement in academic capstone courses and the authentic practices found in engineering workplaces. While capstone courses are intended to replicate real-world engineering projects, students often do not engage as deeply as they could. By examining both students and professional engineers, the researchers aspire to develop a model that can assist educators in designing improved capstone courses. The ultimate objective is to align academic experiences with professional practices, thereby making students more prepared and confident for their future careers.

The NSF MECHATRONIC project aims to expand on prior efforts to curate in-person courses for skills training by developing and delivering an effective hybrid modular online mechatronics curriculum that will enable community college students, university students, and working professionals to flexibly train or retrain to meet the needs of manufacturing industry. Outcomes of this project will enable US industry to maintain a necessary competitive edge.

The central hypothesis of our research is that at-home laboratory kits can achieve the same learning outcomes as in-person laboratory exercises. A secondary hypothesis is that the incorporation of concepts from everyday life will improve the learning outcomes, namely the understanding of transport phenomena and thermodynamics. The project investigates these dual hypotheses by developing experimental modules for use in chemical engineering courses delivered in an in-person and an on-line environment. The proposed modules will replace in-person laboratory exercises that are currently delivered in-person.

We propose to change online courses in the College of Engineering (CoE) in ways that increase students’ retention, feelings of belonging, grades, and bonding with one another. We will harness SocioeconomicMag (SESMag)—an emerging method for increasing technology’s inclusivity for socioeconomically (SES) diverse individuals—to improve our online courses by (a) educating COE faculty to integrate SES-supportive concepts into their online courses, and (b) building an automated tool to evaluate and identify SES “inclusivity bugs” in online CoE courseware. CoE Ecampus faculty can then decide whether and where to remove the SES biases the tool found in their courseware.The proposed work has the potential to further COE’s and OSU/Ecampus’s leadership in inclusive online education, and will serve as a basis for external grants.