Michelle Vigeant-Haas
Pennsylvania State University, PA·Education Research
Students from historically underrepresented and low-income backgrounds are less likely to finish STEM degrees. One likely reason is that many feel they do not belong in their major.
- Fields
Education Research
Engineering
- Topics
engineering education research
sense of belonging
cognitive belonging
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Evaluate whether five high-structure and inclusive teaching strategies raise cognitive belonging in an upper-level architectural engineering course, using surveys, in-class observations and interviews.
- Measure how these strategies affect students' behavioral and social engagement, drawing on Vygotsky's social constructivist theory of learning and a student engagement framework.
- Refine the teaching strategies and measurement instruments across two course offerings using a design-based research method that combines qualitative and quantitative data.
More about the research
This project asks whether specific teaching strategies can strengthen that sense of belonging, along with students' engagement, in an advanced engineering course. Most research on these ideas has been done in introductory math and science classes.
Why it matters
If high-structure and inclusive teaching strategies are shown to raise belonging and engagement, they could help more underrepresented and low-income students stay in engineering and graduate. Over the long term, this could diversify and strengthen the engineering workforce. The work also gives instructors evidence about what works in advanced courses, not just introductory ones.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jennifer Detlor
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI·Education Research
Identify which factors lead engineering students to self-identify as rural, and how strongly they hold that identity, using a survey in which students define rurality in their own terms.
Lance Perez
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, NE·Education Research
Identify the rural assets and structural barriers that shape engineering awareness before college, through site visits and semi-structured interviews with principals, counselors and STEM teachers at rural Nebraska high schools.
Jane Lehr
California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo, CA·Education Research
Test whether scholarship program activities grow transfer students' social networks, resilience, confidence and sense of belonging, using social network analysis, surveys and qualitative interviews.
The school
Pennsylvania State University: 60 labs on PI Pages, $1.3B a year on research, 743 research doctorates a year.
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