Addressing the Learning Needs of Minority Students in Engineering through Participatory Design

This paper provides a holistic presentation of an interdisciplinary research project sponsored by NSF RIGEE (Research Initiative Grant in Engineering Education) program. Launched in 2013, this collaborative research studied the learning characteristics of minority students in a senior computer engineering course using Collaborative Project-based Learning (CPBL) pedagogy and leveraged the research findings to improve the instructional design using Participatory Design Approach to increase the success of underrepresented minority students. During the iterative implementation of the revised CPBL in 2014 and 2015, an embedded single-case study was conducted and multiple forms of data were collected to analyze the impact of the course redesign on (a) course related knowledge and skill outcomes, (b) domain-specific efficacy in relation to situated learning, and (c) student engagement (deep vs. surface learning) and team dynamics. In this paper, quantitative and qualitative data collected over the past three years was analyzed collectively, triangulated, and related to relevant research and theories. This process allowed us to work toward: (1) providing a more generalizable description of our overall findings, (2) gaining a greater understanding of the underlying classroom and course factors and their impact on the development of domain-specific efficacy among minority students, and (3) developing a set of guidelines to effectively incorporate participatory design based on the situated learning framework. The significance of the work presented in this paper highlights the need to accelerate current research on using participatory design as a means to empower minority students in engineering and technology related disciplines.