Streamlining the Process of Evaluating the Education and Diversity Impacts across Engineering Research Centers

Abstract

is a Ph.D student at Arizona State University in the Fulton Schools of Engineering Polytechnic School. He earned a B.S. in Computer Science and a M.S. in Software Engineering, both from XI'an Jiaotong University in China. He also received a M.S.E in Industrial Engineering from Arizona Stat University. Zhen's research interest include engineering student mentor-ship ability development, engineering research center education and diversity impact evaluation, engineering student adaptability development, and engineering graduate student attrition. Combining strength of mathematics modeling and statistics, 5+ years experience in collegiate teaching, Zhen is passionate and dedicated in preparing future engineering work force.

Design and Development: NSF Engineering Research Centers Unite: Developing and Testing a Suite of Instruments to Enhance Overall Education Program Evaluation

“…TEEC has recently completed the third revision of the MERCII survey leveraging the constantly expanding expertise of the team. Coordinated iterative cycles of reflection and action were used for instrument development [30][31]. The instrument currently has seven baseline categories that could be applied to all ERC population groups and will be used to conduct cross-ERC comparisons.…”

Developing common qualitative tools for cross ERC education program evaluation

“…The project began with the effort to develop a streamlined quantitative instrument that can be used across ERC participant groups (e.g., faculty members, year-long research assistants, and summer interns) [4,[7][8]. A quantitative instrument alone will not fit all the evaluation needs for every ERC as the quantitative instrument does not provide detailed information behind the scale scores.…”

“…The complementary qualitative tools being developed include protocols and rubrics for interviews and focus groups, poster assessments, and presentation observations. The development of the qualitative protocols followed an iterative waterfall process which was also utilized while constructing the quantitative instrument [7,8]. Steps included synthesizing existing protocols, referencing supplemental literature, team discussion, and multiple iterations of testing and revising.…”

Design and Testing of a Quantitative Instrument to Evaluate Engineering Research Center Participation

“…Studies of these programs have explored their impact on participants, including attitudinal changes and knowledge acquisition of participating undergraduate students [4][5][6], overall impact on K-14 participants [7,8], and engagement, diversity, and content knowledge of high school participants [9,10]. These efforts provide insights regarding specific scenarios but inconsistencies in approaches have minimized the greater possible impact of center evaluations [11,12]. Large-scale, cooperative efforts are essential to further innovation and effective practices emerging from such centers [11].…”

“…These efforts provide insights regarding specific scenarios but inconsistencies in approaches have minimized the greater possible impact of center evaluations [11,12]. Large-scale, cooperative efforts are essential to further innovation and effective practices emerging from such centers [11]. A multi-institutional consortium, The ERC Evaluation Consortium (TEEC), was formed to combat prior shortcomings through the design of easily accessible quantitative and qualitative [13] evaluation instruments shared by all centers.…”