Professor receives $63,032 grant from NSF

Dr. Ken Reid, director of freshman engineering and associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Ohio Northern University, has received a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to examine the current state of first-year engineering courses. The grant totals $63,062.

Reid will lead a steering committee of engineering professors from prominent universities across the country who teach first-year programs. This committee will develop an Imen-Delphi procedure to collect data from a wide variety of professors nationwide with the goal of establishing classification models of first-year engineering courses according to expected outcomes and assessment methods. The data and analysis will be used to develop a white paper that lays the groundwork for a workshop to be held at ONU to determine what needs to be developed for first-year engineering classification and assessment tools.

As one of the first individuals in the nation to receive a Ph.D. in engineering education, Reid’s primary goal is to improve student retention and persistence during the freshman year of the engineering program so as to create strong foundations on which students can build their futures.

“This project will help engineering programs nationwide classify their first-year engineering courses, which will help schools work together as they develop curriculum or assessment tools,” said Reid. “In the end, improving the first year of engineering education will really help engineering students.”

Published: Wed, 09/08/2010 - 4:58pm