The following projects are currently being worked on by members of RIME. Many of these projects are multi-institution studies that are bringing together diverse groups of students and researchers. If you would like to know about our past projects, please contact us directly.
Motivating Successful Advising
The Motivating Successful Advising project is a collaboration between Ohio State, Virginia Tech, and Arizona State University funded through the Mentorship 360: Facilitating Engineering Faculty success project. The project is researching faculty motivation and identity with regard to developing successful advising practices to ultimately increase the populations of students who complete their degree and increase the diversity of future faculty populations. The study uses the entrepreneurial mindset (EM) to identify and characterize advising practices faculty in Chemical Engineering believe to be effective when working with doctoral students. We are conducting a series of faculty advising workshops to engage in conversations about doctoral advising identifying what faculty believe effective advising and connecting that to what is known in the literature. By identifying faculty beliefs of positive advising practices, we will be able to create value for faculty and students in their advising relationships.
Training Wicked Scientists
The Training Wicked Scientists project is funded by the National Science Foundation’s Innovations in Graduate Education program. The goal of the project is to pilot, test, and validate an innovative program that trains graduate students to become wicked scientists – researchers who are able to tackle the grand challenges of today and tomorrow. Much has been written about the challenges of wicked problems, such as adaptation to climate change, food insecurity, growing inequality, reducing traffic fatalities, cyber security, systemic racism, and emerging infectious diseases. In order to effectively address such grand challenges, graduate students need to be experts in their respective fields, but they also need to develop the transdisciplinary skills to collaborate successfully with fellow researchers and other stakeholders. The goal of this project is to develop a community of practice consisting of graduate students, alumni, and faculty that fosters long-term professional learning of wicked scientists to solve these grand challenges. For more information about this project, click here.
Smartness in Engineering
The EHR Core project is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation and is a collaboration between RIME and BERG. The objective of this research is to understand the beliefs and identities related to smartness and engineering identity of undergraduate engineering students from different pathways into engineering (for example, honors program, standard program, regional campus programs, and community college programs). We are interested in the beliefs of students from various pathways since a commonly accepted approach to increase the participation of diverse individuals in engineering is to provide multiple pathways into engineering degree programs. Although these pathways are intended to promote diversity, they are similar in structure to the educational tracking practices common within the K-12 context, which research has shown perpetuate social inequalities. For more information about this project, click here.
EML Expansion
Institutionalization and Expansion of Entrepreneurially Minded Learning (EML) from the First Year to Capstone is funded through the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN). Our contribution to the project aims to generate answers to research questions that examine the impact of entrepreneurial minded learning (EML) on students at OSU. To accomplish this, we have three main goals. First, seamlessly infuse entrepreneurial mindset-related standardized assessments and instruments into first-year engineering and capstone courses to aid in tracking of student data over time while establishing yearly analysis efforts. Second, conduct mentored entrepreneurial mindset-related research in formal learning environments based on proposals from College of Engineering personnel. Third, report research and assessment findings to research communities, practitioner communities, and broader communities of interest. For more information regarding this project, click here.
Advancing Informal STEM Learning
Ohio State, The STEAM Factory, OHI/O Program, and the Center of Science and Industry (COSI) science center are collaborating on an NSF funded grant to advance innovative and create STEM learning in informal learning environments. The project integrates research-based outreach efforts across several Ohio State colleges, connecting researchers from various disciplines to creatively and effectively communicate science to public audiences of all ages as well as evaluate learning outcomes of informal settings. RIME is also studying the effect of participation in this collaborative project on the motivation and identity of researchers in addition to the students, to promote dialogue between researchers and the community. More information about the project can be found here. To see the Ohio State’s College of Engineering article related to this project, click here. To see the NSF information regarding this project, click here.