Background: Prior research has demonstrated that participation in authentic learning experiences that resemble real-world engineering practice is key to unlocking the benefits of collaborative projects, such as design projects, for students in engineering. However, research has also documented that women are less likely to participate in key learning experiences in engineering design education, undermining the goals of project-based learning.Purpose/Hypothesis: The purpose of this research study was to understand how social power dynamics shape the types of tasks allocated to students in teams and, by extension, students learning in collaborative engineering design projects. Drawing on the Model of Inequitable Task Allocation in Project-Based Learning, this work examines the role of prior experiences and skills, self-efficacy, and students' motivation in the process by which design tasks allocation is negotiated in student teams.Design/Method: This ethnographic study entailed three data collection strategies: (a) ongoing observations of three focal design teams in a cornerstone design course, (b) oneon-one, semi-structured interviews with focal design team members, and (c) reflections from peer mentors who worked with focal and non-focal teams.Results: Students reflected on their prior experiences and skills, and the confidence they gained or lacked as a result, when negotiating their roles in their teams. Importantly, students' valuation of their skills was gendered, where masculinized notions of engineering skills might lead women to underreport their skills during the role-negotiation process. Finally, while gendered patterns of marginalization and exclusion were apparent, I discuss the strategies women employed to exert influence over their team dynamics. Conclusions:Ensuring equitable participation in collaborative projects is key to support learning for all students in collaborative projects. Understanding how students negotiate their roles and learning opportunities is an important step in supporting students' learning in collaborative projects.

Strategies for improving student success are particularly important in high-demand fields like science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). As the U.S. experiences a decline in skilled STEM workers and a growing number of racial/ethnic minorities, it is critical that more attention be paid to the college success of underrepresented populations majoring in STEM. While some strategies for increasing STEM student success have focused on social-psychological factors such as academic self-efficacy and resilience, little attention has been given to these factors among specific minority groups in STEM such as Black men. To extend the current literature, interviews with 27 Black male collegians majoring in engineering or engineering-related fields were analyzed through the lens of the 'buoyant believers' framework. Based on the model, individuals can be described across four typologies as: (a) students who are confident and resilient, (b) students who are confident but lack resilience, (c) students who lack confidence but exhibit resilience, and (d) students who are neither resilient nor confident. Using the 'buoyant believers' framework, we highlight excerpts from interviews to depict students who fit in each category of the matrix. We describe the framework as a useful identification tool to assist college educators looking for clues when identifying strategies to build confident and resilient Black male students in engineering and engineering-related fields. This paper includes strategies related to mentoring, modeling, enrichment activities, and curriculum mastery recommended for the success of each respective student "type" that will prove useful to faculty, staff, and practitioners who work with Black male students in STEM.

Background Demographic characteristics are known to influence participation in cocurricular activities. Less studied are the effects of other background characteristics. Purpose We hypothesize that considering college knowledge and students' proactive behaviors in tandem with demographics provides better models for predicting such participation. Method We developed a questionnaire and administered it to 3,618 domestic third‐ and fourth‐year undergraduate engineering students at a large public R1 Midwestern university, yielding 860 responses. Logistic regression models predicting five types of cocurricular participation were constructed with demographic characteristics, college knowledge, and proactive behaviors in all combinations as predictors. Results Four of five types of cocurricular participation were better modeled using factors beyond demographics. Two were better modeled using only proactive behavior as predictors and two were better modeled using demographics in combination with either college knowledge or proactive behavior. Only one type of participation could be best predicted by demographics alone. Conclusions These findings contribute quantitative evidence establishing relationships between participation in engineering cocurricular activities and a wider range of factors than previously reported. Furthermore, they provide guidance for creating intervention programs because, unlike demographics, college knowledge and proactive behavior can be shaped by either the individual or the institution.

Higher education institutions are charged with developing civically engaged leaders to address the pressing issues facing the country and the world. While existing literature suggests institutional practices, such as promoting co-curricular involvement, hold promise for fostering key learning outcomes, educational literature suggests the benefits of participation may not be shared by all students. Using structural equation modeling, we examine the role of background characteristics (i.e., race/ethnicity and gender) and co-curricular participation in sustainability-related activities in fostering climate change leadership development and sustainability activism. We find that women reported significantly higher systems thinking, futures thinking, leadership development, and activism. Additionally, our results suggest systems thinking and futures thinking are key learning outcomes related to students’ climate change leadership development and activism. Moreover, we find a small negative relationship between sustainability literacy and leadership development and activism, suggesting there might exist an inflection point at which more knowledge about climate change and sustainability issues makes students less likely to engage in leadership and activism behaviors. We discuss the implications of this work for sustainability education pedagogy in higher education.

In high-demand fields like science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), more success strategies are needed to effectively recruit and retain college students. One-size fits-all approaches (i.e., those that are supposed to work for all students) often neglect the unique needs of underrepresented populations. Although some strategies exist for helping minority students succeed in STEM, the present investigation uncovered detailed information about how Black male students in engineering and engineering-related fields develop important academic traits such as confidence and resilience. To add to the limited body of literature on Black males in STEM, interview data from 27 Black male students majoring in engineering or engineeringrelated fields were analyzed through the lens of Strayhorn's 'buoyant believers' framework. The framework offers practitioners, faculty, and staffwho work with minority engineering students guidance for addressing challenges students face and creating pathways for their success. Based on the model, individuals can be described across four typologies as: (a) students who are confident and resilient, (b) students who are confident but lack resilience, (c) students who lack confidence but exhibit resilience, and (d) students who are neither resilient nor confident. The present study focuses solely on the narratives of students who are "buoyant believers." Specific attention was given to the pre-college and in-college experiences of Black males in engineering and engineering-related fields in order to better identify potential sources of their current confidence and resilience. Findings revealed that research participants' current confidence and resilience seem to be connected to attributes such as a) childhood adversity, b) a refusal to quit, and c) prior academic success, which ultimately led to their collegiate achievements.