Collaborative Research: Increasing Implementation of Proven Inclusivity Practices in Undergraduate Engineering Education

This project aims to serve the national interest by helping undergraduate engineering faculty create more inclusive classrooms. It is a collaboration between the University of Pittsburgh, Arizona State University, and Colorado School of Mines. Inclusive teaching practices are known to support increases in student learning and academic performance.

However, faculty often struggle to understand how to improve their curriculum, assessment, and instruction to be more inclusive of all learners. This project aims to provide faculty with specific, proven inclusive practices that they can adapt and implement in their classrooms. It will also develop faculty learning communities to support them as they make changes in their teaching.

Finally, it will evaluate the impacts of the newly implemented inclusive classroom practices on students and faculty. Results of this project could be transformative for developing undergraduate engineering students' STEM identities, particularly student from groups that are not yet equitably represented in engineering. The project expects to ultimately produce positive outcomes for engineering students, including higher graduation rates.

Research supports the claim that inclusive classrooms improve students' learning and academic performance, especially for students from populations that are not equitably represented in STEM. This project seeks to create a professional development initiative that will catalog and encourage implementation of actionable practices for engineering faculty who desire to create more inclusive classrooms.

The project team will address two research questions: (1) What are the most effective practices to promote an inclusive engineering classroom? and (2) How do different learning communities foster and support inclusive engineering classrooms? The research team will develop a menu of inclusive classroom practices and a decision matrix to support faculty prioritization of practices to implement in their classes.

The team intends to recruit faculty and develop and pilot inclusive classroom learning communities, who will deploy inclusive classroom practices. The project evaluation plan includes assessment of the effectiveness of the inclusive classroom practices based on student and faculty feedback and other assessments. The project will be disseminated through a curated online warehouse of inclusivity practices for multiple engineering disciplines that will be shared across the three universities and at other institutions, including across diversity, equity, and inclusion networks.

The implementation of inclusive learning communities in different contexts will be examined to improve understanding of the most effective ways to catalyze and support development of inclusive classrooms. The results of the assessment will inform the academic community and increase the research findings about effective modes of change. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students.

Through the Institutional and Community Transformation track, the program supports efforts to transform and improve STEM education across institutions of higher education and disciplinary communities.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.