Dr. Diefes-Dux: Engineering Education Research: Becoming a Self-Directed Learner

Biological Systems Engineering

Faculty Advisor	Heidi Diefes-Dux
Contact Email	heidi.diefes-dux@unl.edu
Website	https://bse.unl.edu/person/heidi-diefes-dux/
Advisor College:	Engineering
Potential Student Tasks	Responsibilities include analyzing data alongside graduate student researchers; reading about metacognition and reflection; preparing text, tables, and figures for presentations and publications. Trainees will attend weekly research team meetings and present their progress twice a semester to the engineering education research community.
Student Qualifications	• Interested in understanding engineering education and engineering education research • Desire to learn basic research skills • Independent and responsible • Organizational skills • Proactive about seeking resources and help • Basic Microsoft Excel skills • Detail oriented when reading While preference may be given to engineering students, all majors are welcome. This experience may also be suitable to those in science, technology, and math fields as well as the social sciences and education.
Training, Mentoring, and Workplace Community	Trainees will receive systematic foundational instruction on engineering education research and engage in research with a larger research group including faculty, undergraduate, and graduate researchers of varying backgrounds. The aim is to develop independent researchers through involvement in an investigation: understanding research ethics, formulating research questions, conducting data analysis, interpreting results, and documenting findings. The broader engineering education research community meets for professional development and social activities regularly across the semester. Trainees are encouraged and always welcome! Faculty will work individually with trainees to consider next steps in their academic and career paths. The faculty collectively have years of experience working with undergraduate researchers and first-year students. Please visit our website to learn about our current and past successful undergraduate student researchers (https://dber-engr.unl.edu/undergraduate-research) Work schedules are flexible. Secondary contact: Logan Perry, logan.perry@unl.edu
Available Positions	2

During an undergraduate engineering degree, students are meant to acquire lifelong learning skills via the transition from highly structured, teacher-led instruction (pedagogy) to partially or minimally structured, instructor-guided project work (towards andragogy). The engineering student experience is one of transitioning from solving well-defined problems to more workplace-like ‘ill-structured problems’ with the aim of preparing students for their future engineering careers. Students who are not in a process of developing an ability to acquire and apply new knowledge by using appropriate learning strategies, as they are also gaining technical knowledge, abilities, and skills, may find this transition daunting. Students can develop self-directed learning capacity through self-reflection. This project entails examining the impact of bringing reflection activities into engineering courses. FYRE participants may learning quantitative or qualitative skills through analysis of students’ written reflections, pre/post surveys, or instructional video viewing habits.