Research
Below is a collection of my current and previous research projects, descriptions of ongoing work, and links to works that have resulted from each project.
Current Research Projects
Investigating Dimensions of Engineering Culture During COVID-19, Dissertation
The COVID-19 crisis disrupted higher education and prompted rapid shifts to remote learning. In order to understand how engineering programs adapted to the pandemic and understand the impact of that response on students, I am conducting comparative case study that investigates how dimensions of engineering culture impacted the experiences of mechanical engineering students who took second- and third-year courses at a U.S. institution and a South African institution during COVID-19.
My dissertation can be found here. Existing publications include a journal article based on pilot interviews with preliminary findings on one dimension of engineering culture in Advances of Engineering Education, and a conference paper that tested the theoretical framework on a subset of data.
Non-Academic Career Paths of Master’s and PhD Engineers, Co-PI
Project description here.
Reimagining International Research for Students in a Virtual World, Co-PI
Project description here.
Previous Research Projects
Disaster Resilience and Risk Management (DRRM) Program, Graduate Research Assistant
DRRM is an interdisciplinary graduate program designed to promote collaboration across disciplines in order to better prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. As the Graduate Research Assistant for the program, I led course development efforts for the core interdisciplinary DRRM graduate course. I developed interdisciplinary projects for the 2020 course focusing on local flooding issues and facilitating student engagement with Extension agents and community members in order for groups to develop a SWAT analysis for community partners. In addition to my work in the core program course, I designed the logic model for the project and conducted program-level assessment for the annual NSF report. To learn more about the DRRM program, click here.
Previous work used student interviews to explore interdisciplinary identity development and used student concept maps to assess interdisciplinary competencies.
IRES: Civil Engineering and Engineering Education Partnership, Graduate Fellowship
I traveled to Brisbane, Australia in the summer of 2019 to conduct program-level assessment research on this NSF OISE grant, which sends undergraduate civil engineering students abroad to conduct research. During my time in Australia, I also consulted on engineering education projects with civil engineering and chemical engineering faculty at one university in Australia.
I led a project that aimed to characterize and enable engineering education research collaborations between U.S. and Australian researchers, which resulted in a conference paper. I also collaborated with U.S. engineering education researchers to conduct narrative analysis on participant interviews in order to enhance understanding of researcher development.
Academy for Global Engineering, Graduate Fellow
The Academy for Global Engineering is a hub for assessment research and program development in global engineering education. As a graduate fellow, I engaged in global engineering research that examines equity and inclusion in engineering study abroad programs and that aimed to improve global engineering programs.
Previous work includes an examination of study abroad leaders’ experiences as well as an exploration of the experiences of prospective transfer students in a global engineering program.
Developing a Framework for Secondary Analysis, Graduate Research Assistant
This EAGER NSF grant aims to develop a framework for secondary analysis of engineering education qualitative data sets. To work towards creating this sharing framework, I conducted a literature review of over 200 articles in order to identify researchers with qualitative data sets that met a set of criteria.
Capstone to Work: Exploring New Engineers Perceived Preparedness
Capstone to Work was a multi-institutional research study, funded by a NSF EEC grant. The project investigated the transition of new engineers from school into the workplace. I conducted a quantitative analysis on weekly survey data, analyzed qualitative journals and interview data, conducted semi-structured interviews with participants, and helped developed a qualitative codebook.
I led a publication that investigated perceived preparedness in recent engineering graduates. Previous work also includes a study of new engineers first three months at work and a study of women’s experiences in the transition to work.
Social Justice in Engineering Workshop, Graduate Research Assistant
As a Graduate Research Assistant, I developed a bank of case studies that exemplify social justice in engineering and facilitated a workshop to enable first-year engineering instructors to incorporate the case studies into their courses. A conference paper detailing the project was published at the Frontiers in Education (FIE) Conference in 2018 and is available here.
Student Passions in Engineering, Undergraduate Research Project
As an undergraduate student, I developed an independent research project to investigate the perceived impact of student passions on their engineering education experience. A conference paper detailing my findings was published at the Frontiers in Education (FIE) Conference in 2017 and is available here.
Dr. Jessica Deters 