This engineering education research initiation grant seeks to establish an interdisciplinary collaboration between engineering and educational psychology to understand student motivation and achievement in large, interdisciplinary service courses. Such courses are taken by large numbers of students early in their engineering degree programs. The investigators seek to understand how to create better means of teaching courses to motivate students from a range of engineering disciplines who may not see the course material as relevant to their degree. The investigators focus on determining how the planned course interventions affects students' perceptions of value and development of self-efficacy.
The broader significance and importance of this project arises through developing ways to better retain students in engineering programs. Since students are more likely to leave engineering in the first two years when the large service learning courses are often taken, discovering how to improve how relevant these courses are perceived by students may contribute to retaining higher numbers in engineering. This project overlaps with NSF's strategic goals of transforming the frontiers through preparation of an engineering workforce with new capabilities and expertise. Additionally NSF's goal of innovating for society is enabled by creating results and research that are useful for society by informing educational policy and practices.
