Last Thursday, nine ENE faculty and graduate students presented their research at the annual STEM Education Conference held at Purdue University. With 530 educators in attendance, sessions were conducted throughout the day and included the following ENE presentations:

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – ALGETEC, a leading Brazilian company in the engineering education field, officially opened their U.S. branch, called ALGETEC USA in West Lafayette, Indiana with assistance from the Purdue Foundry.

Industrial Roundtable activities are taking place September 11-13, 2017. We have outlined a timeline for some of the events taking place on campus as well as additional job postings and general information.

Drs. Audeen Fentiman, Robin Adams, and Karl Smith recently received an NSF EAGER grant for the project, "Impact of the emerging engineering education research and innovation community."

Dr. Muhsin Menekse and College of Education colleagues Dr. Lynn Bryan, Dr. Selcen Guzey (ENE Courtesy), and Dr. Jill Newton recently received a grant through the Indiana Commission for Higher Learning, titled, "Strengthening Indiana's Future through the 21st Century STEM Teachers Scholarship Program."

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Engineering education researchers have developed a method to assess the effectiveness of instructors who are using an innovative teaching approach that could play a role in boosting the number and quality of engineering graduates.

Muhsin Menekse and Selcen Guzey with colleagues Lynn Bryan (College of Education) and Kari Clase (Purdue Polytechnic, BIRS) were recently awarded an NSF DRK-12 Grant, "Integration of Engineering Design and Life Science: Investigating the Influence of an Intervention on Student Interest and Motivation in STEM Fields."

Panelists will disseminate initial findings from focus group interviews seeking to understand the mechanisms that support high levels of women’s engineering participation. While the conversation will feature focus group data from female undergraduate engineering students, faculty, and practicing engineers in Jordan, Tunisia, and Malaysia, panelists will also discuss aspects of international collaboration and data collection, including plans for study in Saudi Arabia and the United States. The panelists will draw from their different disciplinary backgrounds—sociology, engineering, engineering education—to make observations and solicit discussion.

Validity in educational assessment is a frequently used but misunderstood term. The fundamental meaning of validity is an evaluation of evidence to determine appropriate interpretation and use of an assessment’s findings. Whether or not an assessment’s results can be trusted as valid indicators for a given use case can be difficult to ascertain for those without technical training in assessment.