Engineering education has a long and well-researched history; however, recent declines in the number of undergraduate students entering and matriculating through to graduation has commanded the engineering education community's attention. To help counter the declining number of students entering and persisting in engineering, an engineering…

Less than 20% of undergraduates earning a degree in engineering are women, and even more alarming is minority women earn a mere 3.1% of those degrees. This paper reports on a qualitative study examining Latinas' identity development toward and in undergraduate engineering and computer science studies using a sociocultural theory of learning. Three…

In an attempt to broaden participation in STEM, a new type of high school is emerging, high schools which include a focus on engineering, have few or no academic admission criteria, and actively involve students of all levels of ability, known as Inclusive STEM High Schools (ISHSs). One aspect of successful ISHSs includes the intentional and…

Many industrial arts, technology education, and now technology and engineering education leaders have made their mark on our profession. Their legacy is something that members of the profession enjoy and have a responsibility to continue and build upon. This is the fifteenth in a series of articles entitled "The Legacy Project." The…

The growing number of U.S. engineering jobs signifies a need for more students to pursue engineering degrees. To increase access to engineering education, in 2015, Texas A&M University established Engineering Academies (EA) in cooperation with selected community colleges. The problem addressed in this study was a lack of knowledge about why…

Many industrial arts, technology education, and now technology and engineering education leaders have made their mark on the technology and engineering teaching profession. Their legacy is something that members of the profession enjoy and have a responsibility to continue and build upon. This is the sixteenth in a series of articles entitled…

Educational approaches in structural engineering have focused on classical methods for solving problems with manual calculations through assignments, quizzes, and exams. The use of computational software to apply the learned knowledge has been ignored for decades. This paper describes an educational approach to tackle the lack of applicable…

We report the results of a study focused on identifying and articulating an ''epistemic foundation'' underlying a pre-collegiate focus on engineering. We do so in the context of UTeach"Engineering" (UTE), a program supported in part by funding by the National Science Foundation and designed to develop a model approach to address the…

Engineering education directly supports the nation's capacity for economic growth, infrastructure renewal, and security, as well as environmental and human health. Numerous reports have recommended federal support to advance our understanding of how students learn, how faculty teach, and how teaching and learning are assessed. The U.S. National…

The Texas A&M University (TAMU) Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (TAMUS LSAMP) office provided funding to the Texas A&M University College of Engineering to support student participation in the Engineering Learning Community Introduction to Research (ELCIR) program. ELCIR is a two-week, study abroad, research program…

This article identifies a number of issues associated with current STEM education reform efforts, especially with regard to efforts to integrate engineering education into the K-12 curriculum. Precollege engineering is especially problematic in STEM reform since there is no well-established tradition of engineering in the K-12 curriculum. This…

Laboratory-based instruction is a powerful educational tool that engages students in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines beyond textbook theory. This is true in mechanical engineering education and is often used to provide collegiate-level students a hands-on alternative to course theory. Module-based laboratory…

The present study sought to reveal how elementary teachers develop their engineering pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) after leaving professional development programs to practice engineering teaching in real classroom settings. Participants of this study were the elementary teachers who received one-week training of engineering education…

Elementary engineering education (EEE) is an educational innovation. Using Rogers's innovation diffusion model, the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM), and Dreyfus's skill acquisition model as its theoretical frameworks, this study investigated elementary teachers' EEE adoption and EEE expertise development. Data of this study were collected…

The importance of reducing the gender gap in engineering programs by recruiting and retaining female students is well recognized. Although women hold roughly half of all jobs in the United States, only 24% of STEM jobs are occupied by women. The problem is even more pronounced for engineering, where women held about 12% of jobs as of 2013 (Corbett…