Board 9: Engineering Student Perspectives on Research and What It Means to Be a Researcher

Abstract

with a joint appointment in Bioengineering. Her research focuses on the interactions between student motivation and their learning experiences. Her projects involve the study of student perceptions, beliefs and attitudes towards becoming engineers and scientists, and their problem solving processes. Other projects in the Benson group include effects of student-centered active learning, self-regulated learning, and incorporating engineering into secondary science and mathematics classrooms. Her education includes a B.S. in Bioengineering from the University of Vermont, and M.S. and Ph.D. in Bioengineering from Clemson University.

Undergraduate engineering students' perceptions of research and researchers

“…We investigated students' perceptions by administering an open‐ended survey adapted from an instrument developed from previous work (Benson et al, 2018; Faber, Benson, et al, 2016; McAlister et al, 2017). Participant responses were collected through Qualtrics and coded to establish a codebook that was refined during analysis.…”

“…Our survey included 16 open‐ended prompts (see the ) that were part of a larger survey (Benson et al, 2018; Faber, Benson, et al, 2016; McAlister et al, 2017). The prompts were informed by our previous work (Faber & Benson, 2015a, 2015b), where we developed and tested open‐ended survey prompts to explore how students identify as researchers.…”

Work in Progress: A Mixed Methods Approach to Better Understand Researcher Identity

“…This WIP is part of a larger mixed methods, grounded theory project aimed at developing a conceptual model to understand the epistemic thinking and researcher identity of engineering students [11]- [13]. For this work, we are specifically focusing on the researcher identity piece of the larger study and the use of a mixed methods approach to understand students' perspectives on their researcher identities.…”

Paper: Using Qualitative Techniques to Understand the Types of Undergraduate Research Mentorship

“…Following the selection of interviews, each interview was qualitatively analyzed to find all information related to mentorship. This approach was similar to that of the larger project, but in a simpler format [13]. Although the interviews were not geared toward the specific information sought out by this research study, the interviews still contained a substantial amount of information related to this topic.…”