Bridging Cognitive and Motivational Psychology to Combat Engineer Shortage

1. WIP: Bridging Cognitive and Motivational Psychology to Combat Shortage of Engineers Martin Reisslein, Roxana Moreno, and Jana Reisslein Arizona State University University of New Mexico

2. Challenge and Overall Approach • Challenge: • Technology based U.S. society requires skilled engineering workforce • Low popularity of engineering among domestic students • Overall Approach: • Cross-disciplinary team of engineers and psychologists • Uncover fundamental techniques to increase effectiveness of engineering ed/ popularity of eng.

3. Prominent Causes for Eng. Shortage • Low awareness of engineering • Less than half of U.S. population aware of what engineers do • Less than quarter of U.S. females • Overly challenging eng. programs • Significant attrition from freshman to graduating senior • Persistence in eng. programs low

4. Approach: Bridging Psych. with Eng. • Cognitive Psychology • Minimize cognitive load, foster self-efficacy • Maximize persistence • Rigorous evaluations • Motivational Psychology • Importance of cultural context, social relevance • Bridge these two psych. areas with engineering, computer science

5. Related Work • Increasing effectiveness of eng. ed. has received significant interest, e.g., individual learning styles • Also, successful engineering approaches have been investigated, e.g., teaming • This work complementary by focusing on psychological underpinnings of engineering learning

6. Input from Cognitive Psych. • Applicability of techniques for fostering self-efficacy, e.g., worked examples, multimedia learning • Primarily investigated with psychology students in social science/probability domains • Do these techniques carry over to engineering? • Extend and adapt to engineering, or identify principles unique to engineering

7. Input from Motivational Psych. • Impact of cultural context and social relevance on persistence • E.g., Keller’s ARCS (Attention, Relevance, Confidence, Satisfaction) model of motivational design: • Expose learner to instruction that relates to previous experiences, needs, interests • But, large portion of population unaware of what engineers do • Unique challenge of engineering ed.

8. Preliminary Results • Cognitive aspects of effective representation of engineering instructional content • High school students w/o prior engineering ed. • Textual representation of instructional prompts more effective than graphical representation, effect size Cohen’s f = 0.38 • College level engineering students • Text/graphics combination more effective than text/ equations combination, effect size Cohen’s f = 0.31 • Indications of importance of appropriate learning content representation • Comprehensive, rigorous study needed

9. Dissemination • Research outcome: techniques with rigorously verified levels of effectiveness • Derive guidelines for educational modules • Employ to • Increase awareness/ interest among high school students • Reduce cognitive load in eng. courses • Increase persistence in engineering programs

10. Conclusion • WIP to thoroughly understand cognitive and motivational psych. principles of eng ed. • Rigorously verified in empirical studies • Important component in effort to attract and retain qualified students and alleviate engineer shortage