Projects

Description

Abstract: This NSF-BPE Track 3: Inclusive Mentoring Hub project, called Raíces Institute for Transformative Advocacy (RITA) will equip engineering contingent faculty (adjuncts, part-timers, and non-tenure track), who are Black, Indigenous, People of Color of all intersecting identities (BIPOCx), to form their own transformative grassroots advocacy strategies for attaining equity in promotion pathways and working conditions at their hiring academic institutions. Project objectives center around: developing authentic mentor/mentee relationships, learning/developing transformative individual/collective advocacy plans, and raising awareness for the promotion and/or working conditions of BIPOCx contingent faculty in engineering. Due to the scant attention paid to contingent faculty, this population is severely understudied and undersupported. In the United States alone, there are ~1.5 million faculty employed in higher education out of which over 46% are contingent, the majority composed of marginalized groups, creating a missed opportunity to broaden participation. To broaden participation, our nation needs to leverage a diverse and inclusive science and engineering enterprise to secure economic, national security, and jobs of the future. This project attends to all aspects of this national need. Contingent faculty typically serve fundamental undergraduate courses and large class sizes, indirectly impacting the educational experience of students. Yet, continual stresses of an unstable and non-permanent contingent workforce with limited professional development, promotion opportunities, and benefits, negatively affects higher education. Literature suggests that contingent faculty struggle with implementing evidence-based teaching and mentoring to students because they are either juggling multiple courses in multiple institutions to ‘make ends meet’ or handle multiple service responsibilities with little-to-no support to assist students fully. RITA serves as one of the early studies into the realities and circumstances of contingent faculty in engineering with the aim to generate knowledge, provide recommendations and strategies for institutional action to support, and provide equitable working conditions for these faculty. This project will, by extension benefit numerous undergraduate engineering students who are enrolled in many of these contingent faculty-led courses.

Public Access Repository

(Principal Investigator). National Science Foundation. BPE Track 3: Raíces Institute for Transformative Advocacy (RITA). Duration: August 1, 2022 to July 31, 2027. PI: Idalis Villanueva: co-PI: Marisela Martinez-Cola; co-PI: Homero Murzi; Senior Personnel: Linda Searby; Estimated Total Amount: $799,994; Villanueva Share: 54.13%. 

Description

Abstract: The main goal of this project is to understand how Black engineering doctoral students and their faculty advisors (academic partners) develop a sense of agency (the ability to perceive and enact change within one’s environment) and how their agency changes over time to form a professional identity. In this project, academic partners will help refine and co-develop materials, procedures, and policies to mitigate racial inequities in their respective disciplines in engineering. One of the focal points of this work will be to explore agency and to investigate and uncover coping and advocacy strategies in engineering. Additionally critical communication strategies and policy strategies for instituting change and empowerment within engineering and engineering education will also be addressed. A primary broader impact of this project will be the amplification of Black student voices and agentic actions in their continuing work to achieve equitable representation in engineering and STEM fields. The project will support efforts by researchers, administrators, and educators to help students of color broaden their participation in the engineering workforce.

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(Principal Investigator). National Science Foundation. Racial Equity in STEM: Critical Conversations: Systemic and Agentic Empowerment of Black Ph.D. Students and their Faculty Advisors in Engineering. Duration: August 1, 2022 to July 31, 2027. PI: Denise Simmons; co-PI: Idalis Villanueva, Jasmine McNealy; Estimated Total Amount: $1,235,496; Villanueva Share: 22.4%. 

Description

Abstract: Broadening participation in engineering is a major priority for the National Science Foundation. Because of its importance to workforce development, national security, and economic prosperity, there is a pressing need to fund broadening participation educational research with strong intellectual merit and that render findings that can be used to broadening participation throughout the engineering enterprise. This CAREER research project is motivated by the need to develop practical strategies and frameworks for helping underrepresented students successfully navigate hidden curriculum that often deter or impede their academic persistence in engineering degree programs. Research findings are likely to inform the engineering education community about negative impacts of hidden curriculum on underrepresented students’ academic persistence in engineering and how to create a more inclusive engineering academic culture for all students. In engineering, there is strong need to better understand the academic and social challenges that underrepresented students often face in engineering degree programs. Conducting research studies, such as this, offers immense potential to transform engineering education and engineering practice for underrepresented students.

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(Principal Investigator) National Science Foundation, NSF BPE CAREER: Advocating for Engineering through Hidden Curricula: A Multi-Institutional Mixed Method Approach, Duration: January 15, 2017 to June 30, 2022; PI: Idalis Villanueva; Total Amount: $722,779; Villanueva Share: 100%

Description

Abstract: Engineering is part of everyone’s local community and daily activities yet opportunities to learn about engineering are often absent from elementary school classrooms. Further, little is known about how teachers’ and students’ conceptions of engineering relate to aspects of their local community such as language and culture. Knowing more about this is important because students’ perceptions of mismatch between their personal culture and the engineering field contributes to the continued underrepresentation of minorities in the profession. This mixed-method exploratory study will examine how bilingual teachers working in elementary schools in Massachusetts and Puerto Rico understand the role and skills of engineers in society. In turn, it will examine how teachers adapt existing engineering lessons so that those activities and concepts are more culturally and linguistically accessible to their students. This project is funded by the Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12), which seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects.

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(Principal Investigator) National Science Foundation, DRK-12: Teaching: Enhancing Engineering Understanding in K-5 Bilingual Programs: Advocating for Latinx in Engineering Careers, Duration: December 1, 2018 to May 31, 2023; PI: Idalis Villanueva; co-PIs: Marialuisa Di Stefano and Alberto Esquinca; Total Amount: $449,999; Villanueva Share: 83.33%

Description

Abstract: Professional societies are a crucial part of the ecosystem that fosters the professional formation of engineers by, among other things, shaping the technical direction of their disciplines and the ethical responsibility of practicing engineers towards public health, safety, and welfare. In the last decade, in partnership with engineering education institutions, these professional societies have emphasized the need to include the social implications of engineering in parallel to techno-economic fundamentals needed to form engineering professionals. Despite these efforts, the transfer of knowledge between academic institutions and professional societies, and its influence in undergraduate engineering formation, is not well understood. Prior studies have explored faculty stances on what social implications mean for the engineering profession and what challenges they have encountered in implementing transformations in the engineering curriculum. However, there is still a need to uncover how engineering faculty develop strategies and the role their involvement in professional societies can play in these actions. This project will conduct a qualitative study to explore the strategic agency of engineering faculty involved in professional societies as they transform their teaching practices to address social implications in their classrooms. In a data-driven field such as engineering, narrative inquiry research methods provide the opportunity to place the experiences of chemical engineering faculty at the forefront and find exemplar evidence-based strategies that can be shared with other engineering disciplines.

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(Senior Personnel) National Science Foundation RIEF: Research Initiation: Facilitating Professional Formation of Engineers through Strategic Agency of Engineering Faculty, Duration: August 15, 2021 to July 30, 2023; PI: Sindia Rivera-Jimenez; Estimated Total Amount: $199,999; Villanueva Share: 7.28%

Description

Abstract: With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this HSI Conference project aims to more deeply explore across Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI), the realities of contingent (part-time, contract-bound, or non-tenure track) Latinx faculty with various research and teaching roles. This collaborative project consists of a two-part conference focusing on the experiences of Latinx faculty in STEM, one part for faculty members themselves, and one for their administrators. This work will explore the working realities of contingent faculty who represent over 46% of the employed faculty in higher education systems. In particular, we will seek to understand the challenges many contingent faculty, primarily from the Latinx communities, experience in the California State University (CSU) system. CSU schools collectively form one of the largest pools of HSIs in the nation in terms of Latina/o undergraduate enrollment in HSIs. This work will contribute to a fairly untapped and underexplored area of research to help uncover the hidden barriers that prevent the success and navigation of these individuals in their professions. Although this conference proposal is primarily focused on Latinx contingent faculty in STEM, the anticipated work and results will serve as a baseline for future research as well as policy-informed initiatives to support the success of these faculty, and by extension their students.

Public Access Repository

(Principal Investigator) National Science Foundation: HSI Conference: Collaborative Research: Exploring the hidden realities of contingent Latinx faculty in STEM, Duration: September 1, 2021 to August 31, 2022; PI: Idalis Villanueva; co-PI: José Muñoz; Total Amount: $186,706; Villanueva Share: 73.7%

Description

Abstract: A strong engineering workforce is critical to maintaining a dynamic and innovative United States economy. Engineering programs present considerable challenges, including the need to motivate students and the need for students to have positive attitudes toward learning. Prior research demonstrates that high motivation and positive attitudes towards learning occur when students feel in control of their own learning, place a high value on what they are studying, can regulate their anxiety, and recover from setbacks. While asking students questions about these issues is useful, there is a more direct way to study them – by measuring students’ physical responses in real time. A unique element of this study is that in addition to surveys, the investigators will monitor students’ body stress responses through sweat and saliva to capture students’ anxiety during an exam. The intellectual merit of this ECR project is to broaden understanding of factors related to success using physical signs that a student cannot consciously control and of which they may not even be aware. The broader impacts of this research will come from integrating students’ reported perceptions with their unconscious responses to better understand students’ emotional and motivational responses to learning, especially those of underrepresented students, who face even greater challenges. This ECR project will support innovative learning environments that promote student success and entrance into the workforce.

Public Access Repository

(Principal Investigator) National Science Foundation, EHR CORE, Collaborative Research: Getting Real about engineering: an exploration of the emotional & motivational components of learning in the engineering classroom, Duration: July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2021; PI: Idalis Villanueva; co-PI: Jenefer Husman; Total Amount: $500,000; Villanueva Share: 46.05%

Description

Abstract: Makerspaces are physical locations that include equipment and tools to allow its users to create and invent prototypes, develop ideas into models, and collaborate to design new products and solutions. The presence of makerspaces has increased substantially over the last 5 years and are now commonly integrated into undergraduate engineering preparation programs. The increased attention makerspaces are receiving in the STEM disciplines, and particularly within engineering education, provides justification for examining the influence of these spaces on undergraduate student development into professionals. There is wide speculation that access to and interactions within makerspaces enhance engineering students’ undergraduate learning experiences by exposing the students to activities that enhance their development as engineers. Yet there is a lack of data supporting the notion that engineering students’ involvement in university affiliated makerspace experiences and activities positively influences their professional development. This project is conducting six case studies of university engineering education makerspace programs to determine the influence of makerspaces on the professional formation of undergraduate engineering students and the use and impact of makerspaces on faculty members. Building upon the case studies, the project will develop and disseminate a national survey to engineering education students and faculty members working in makerspace-affiliated engineering education programs. The project will increase our understanding of how makerspaces influence students’ professional identity development, motivation, expertise, and propensity for persistence. Data gathered from this project will document the sustainability and scalability of makerspaces in engineering education programs through examination of undergraduate engineering education students, faculty, programs, and institutions. Finally, the work informs new lines of research regarding makerspaces in postsecondary professional engineering preparation programs.

Public Access Repository

(Co-Principal Investigator) National Science Foundation, Research in the Formation of Engineers, Collaborative Research: The Making of Engineers: Influence of Makerspaces on the Preparation of Undergraduates as Engineers, Duration: September 1, 2017 to August 31, 2021; PI: Louis Nadelson; co-PIs: Idalis Villanueva and Jana Bouwma-Gearhart; Total Amount: $350,000; Villanueva Share: 33.78%

Description

Abstract: With the increased use of online educational lessons to complement face-to-face instruction in universities and colleges nationwide, it will be important to understand how these forms of instructional aids help students to engage, garner interest in and excel in their courses. In the areas of science, technology, engineering, and math, little is known about how these electronic instructional tools can be designed to motivate students to engage with concepts that are fundamental, yet difficult to master. In particular, we aim to explore how these types of instructional aids influence the engagement and interest of students from underrepresented groups and women in the field of engineering. Special focus will be given to courses and online instructional aids for topics within engineering where drop-out rates are known to be high among students (e.g., engineering statics).

Public Access Repository

(Principal Investigator) National Science Foundation, Research Initiation: Collaborative Research: Understanding pedagogically motivating factors for under-represented & non-traditional students in an engineering classroom, Duration: September 1, 2018 to August 31, 2021; PI: Kimberly Cook-Chennault; co-PI: Idalis Villanueva; Total Amount: $199,891, Villanueva Share: 9%