Lisa Clemence Benson

Clemson University | CU · Department of Engineering and Science Education

Mathematics self-efficacy and mathematics anxiety can influence a student’s decision to pursue and complete an engineering major, and these influences can disproportionately affect female students. This research adapted two instruments to collect information about the mathematics self-efficacy and mathematics anxiety of first-year engineering stude...

fig orientation="portrait" position="float" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> It is with a mix of great sadness, respect, and gratitude that we reflect on the passing of Prof. Jeffrey E. Froyd in October of 2022. We would like to first recall Jeff’s many accomplishments for those who may not...

The COVID-19 pandemic generated worldwide negative effects on college students’ stress levels and motivation to learn. This research focuses on the lack of development of a sense of belonging in engineering students due to online classes during the pandemic and possible differences experiencing online classes between students from different context...

Background One facet of motivation relevant to students' learning is their perceptions of the future, including future career goals and how those perceptions influence their present actions; this is collectively referred to as their future time perspective (FTP). Purpose/Hypothesis This study describes the different FTPs of engineering students. W...

Undergraduate research experiences (UREs) in science and engineering offer a number of positive outcomes to the students who are able to participate, including increased retention, clarified career goals, and development of problem‐solving skills. There have been a number of calls for research that investigates the experiences, identity, and cognit...

Background: Identity research in engineering education has been expanding to include multiple forms of measurement. While a variety of approaches have successfully contributed to our understanding of identity, mixed method approaches have been utilized minimally in identity research. Therefore, additional insight on the implications and affordances...

Background Participating in undergraduate research experiences (UREs) supports the development of engineering students' technical and professional skills. However, little is known about the perceptions of research or researchers that students develop through these experiences. Understanding these perceptions will provide insight into how students c...

The recognized importance of computational thinking has helped to propel the rapid development of related educational efforts and programs over the past decade. Given the multi-faceted nature of computational thinking, which goes beyond programming and computer science, however, approaches and practices for developing students’ computational thinki...

This paper examines students’ claims about who can become an engineer and what it takes in engineering culture to be successful. Through longitudinal interviews with 20 undergraduate engineering students, we found that participants’ descriptions of who can ‘do’ engineering were paradoxical. Participants simultaneously maintained that ‘anyone’ could...

When examining factors affecting student academic success, it is important to consider how these factors interact with one another. Students’ affective attributes are complex in nature; thus, research methods and analyses should holistically examine how these attributes interact, not simply as a set of distinct constructs. Prior research into engin...

Computational thinking is widely recognized as important, not only to those interested in computer science and mathematics but also to every student in the twenty-first century. However, the concept of computational thinking is arguably complex; the term itself can easily lead to direct connection with “computing” or “computer” in a restricted sens...

Design and design thinking are vital to creativity and innovation, and have become increasingly important in the current movement of developing and implementing integrated STEM education. In this editorial, we build on existing research on design and design thinking, and discuss how students’ learning and design thinking can be developed through de...

This study examined two distinct groups of women in engineering (i.e., first-generation and continuing-generation college students) to understand how the engineering role identity constructs of interest, recognition, and performance/competence fostered grit-perseverance of effort and grit-consistency of interest. A survey was administered to first-...

Contribution: This paper found that design experiences can foster engineering identity and belongingness for early career electrical and computer engineering students. Students had different interpretations of what it meant to be an engineer (identity) and their belongingness in engineering. This paper provides novel insights into how students may...

Este estudio multimétodos busca lograr un mejor entendimiento de las razones que pueden motivar a un estudiante a seleccionar una carrera en ingeniería, poniendo énfasis en las diferencias que puedan existir entre alumnos con distintos niveles de habilidades matemáticas. Se recolectó información sobre las experiencias académicas y personales de 560...

Contribution: This paper furthers understanding of how to use studio culture to develop instruction that supports learners' epistemic development in the context of an engineering senior design course, with a focus on student development of epistemic frames. Background: Current capstone engineering design courses do not integrate the educational the...

The rapidly evolving and global field of STEM education has placed ever-increasing calls for interdisciplinary research and the development of new and deeper scholarship in and for STEM education. In this editorial, we focus on the topic of thinking, first with a brief overview of related studies and conceptions in the past. We then problematize a...

The IEEE Education Society, the IEEE Computer Society, and the American Society for Engineering Education Educational Research and Methods Division (ASEE-ERM) sponsored the 48th Frontiers in Education (FIE) Conference in San Jose, CA, USA, held October 3–6, 2018. Claudio R. Brito, President of the IEEE Education Society, and Stephen T. Frezza, Chai...

Contribution: The current study finds that female-identified students report stronger associations between “helping others” and interest in bioengineering/biomedical engineering than non-females, while they report less interest in electrical and computer engineering overall, with similar associations to factors such as “inventing/designing things”...

This mixed methods research study focuses on two relevant factors in students' decisions to pursue and complete an engineering major: mathematics preparation and mathematics self-efficacy. This study describes the relationship of mathematics self-efficacy on engineering students' performance, behavior, and attitudes in their first college mathemati...

Women’s participation in engineering remains well below that of men at all degree levels. However, despite the low enrollment of women in engineering as a whole, some engineering disciplines report above average female enrollment. We used multiple linear regression to examine the attitudes, beliefs, career outcome expectations, and career choice of...

Background Preparing students to solve complex problems is an identified area of need in engineering education. Despite the documented influence of motivation on learning, little research exists that examines how motivation and problem solving in engineering interconnect. Purpose This study explores how engineering students perceive problem solvin...

Background Students' beliefs about knowledge (epistemic beliefs) and their motivations toward processing information (epistemic motivation) have been suggested as influencing aspects of learning. Purpose This study investigated the relationship between engineering students' approach to solving an open‐ended homework problem and their epistemic mot...

Background The field of engineering education research is adopting an increasingly diverse range of qualitative methods. These developments necessitate a coherent language and conceptual framework to critically engage with questions of qualitative research quality. Purpose/Hypothesis This article advances discussions of qualitative research qualit...

The National Science Foundation implemented the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program to encourage science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) majors to transition into K-12 education. One of the aims for grants awarded through this program is to increase the number of current STEM undergraduate majors who are exposed to the teaching...

This work is situated within a larger, explanatory mixed methods project focused on understanding how undergraduates conceptualize their identities as researchers and their engineering epistemic beliefs. We will highlight the nature of the quantitative data, cluster analyses, and characteristics of the resulting clusters. Responses to anchored surv...

Undergraduate Research Experiences (UREs) have been shown to enhance an undergraduate student’s academic experience, deepen their understanding of their field, and lead to increased retention of undergraduate students within STEM programs. While UREs may improve undergraduate STEM education, not all students can access UREs due to either constraint...

This study utilized a quantitative survey and open-ended items to understand engineering students' epistemic beliefs and gather content and face validity evidence. The survey included 22 items from the Engineering-Related Beliefs Questionnaire. Fifty undergraduate bioengineering students completed the survey. In addition to responding to the items...

As the need for qualified science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) graduates increases, there is an accompanying need for improved undergraduate STEM education. Undergraduate Research Experiences (UREs) have been shown to enhance an undergraduate student's academic experience; however, not all students can participate in or have acc...

Undergraduate research experiences provide students the opportunity to solve complex, open-ended problems in their fields. As such, it is expected that these opportunities influence students’ development of problem-solving skills and beliefs about how knowledge is constructed in their fields. This exploratory study utilized a qualitative approach t...

Quality assessment of student learning is important in physics education. However, it can be challenging to construct assessments measuring students' understanding of concepts and elicit deeper levels of cognition during problem solving. Tests are common assessments, but students assume test questions will have a numeric or symbolic answer. This st...

Engineering and Computer Science (E&CS) Education is an emerging discipline and is a subset of the larger field of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education. E&CS Education has a relatively brief history, and many individuals who are not directly involved in the discipline are often confused about its purpose. In this special sessi...

The purpose of this work is to investigate how undergraduate engineering students perceive being recognized as researchers and what they identify to influence their development as researchers. Student responses (n=21) to open-ended survey items were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The students who participated in this study were from b...

To increase the number of STEM majors exposed to the teaching profession and applying for undergraduate/graduate education programs, a paid teaching internship program for current STEM undergraduates was created at our institution. This program currently places students with secondary STEM teachers to observe, assist and finally teach under supervi...

Undergraduate research experiences have been shown to increase retention, help students clarify career goals, and increase understanding of how research is done. There are a limited number of studies investigating students’ identity development and integration into research communities of practice. Identity development and integration into communit...

International experiences are increasingly viewed as an essential component of engineering education. However, limited research has been conducted that leads to 1) a comprehensive definition of engineering global preparedness, 2) determination of how global preparedness is achieved, or 3) delineation of how particular experiences impact the develop...

The increasingly global scope of engineering requires both academic and industry stakeholders to seek engineering graduates who work effectively with peers from diverse national and cultural backgrounds. As a consequence, U.S. engineering programs are challenged to include international perspectives and experiences through a variety of approaches i...

The Study Cycle is a set of guidelines rich with self-regulated learning (SRL) techniques that enables students to plan, prepare, and enact their studying by focusing on five comprehensive steps: previewing before class, engaging in class, reviewing after class, holding study sessions, and seeking help as a supplement. This paper reports on initial...

This study is situated within a larger project that seeks to understand how students that start in precalculus and struggle in their math courses persist and complete an engineering degree program. The specific aims of this study are to determine 1) the extent to which students that start in precalculus persist in engineering after one year, 2) cor...