Research Topic:

Supporting Persistence in Engineering

Once students choose to enroll in an engineering program, how do we ensure that they persist to degree completion?

In my research, I use multiple lenses to understand how persistence can be supported and how it is hindered, including engineering identity, sense of belonging, and funds of knowledge. Currently, I am working on understanding how underrepresented students’ funds of knowledge supports the development of an engineering identity and how their funds of knowledge informs their beliefs about persisting in engineering.

Related Projects

Project Status: Published

Unmasking the Impact of First-Generation College Students’ Psychological Capital: A Person-Centered Approach

This study provided further evidence that engineering FGC students hold multiple forms of psychological capital by 1) showing they hold positive motivational goal orientations and 2) demonstrating how their motivational goals orient them toward adaptive […]

Project Status: Published

“I see myself as an engineer”: Disentangling Latinx engineering students’ perspectives of the engineering identity survey measure

Paper presented at the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Annual Conference 2024 by A. Lili Castillo

Project Status: Published

Chapter 5: Examining the Funds of Knowledge that Support Latinx Students’ Engineering Identity Development and Career Certainty

Project Status: Published

Classroom Goal Structures Impact Mindsets: A study of Undergraduate Engineering Students at a Hispanic-Serving Institution

Presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Conference held in Philadelphia, April 2024

Project Status: Published

Validating Practices and Messages that Promote Minoritized Women’s Engineering Classroom Belongingness: An Intersectional Approach

Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering Authors: Dina Verdín and A. Lili Castillo Abstract Establishing and sustaining a sense of belonging is a necessary human motivation with particular implications for student learning, […]

Project Status: Published

A Systematic Literature Review for Mastery Learning in Undergraduate Engineering Courses

International Journal of Engineering Education Access to Full Article here Authors: Carlos L. Pérez and Dina Verdín Abstract Implementing mastery learning in an undergraduate engineering course can be cumbersome, requiring instructors to restructure their evaluation […]

Project Status: Published

Engineering Students’ Shift in Mindsets Over the Course of a Semester: A Longitudinal Study at a Hispanic-Serving Institution

Brief Overview of Study Students, like all people, have elements of both growth and fixed mindsets. Carlo Dweck’s work claims that people can endorse both a fixed and growth mindset. Yet, there remains a gap […]

Project Status: Published

Confidence in pursuing an engineering degree: An Analysis of First-generation college student

Presented in the 2021 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference Objective This research study examined how first-generation college students’ mathematics and physics identity support the development of an engineering identity and how the three STEM identities […]

Project Status: Published

Using Funds of Knowledge to promote Persistence in Engineering

I have been working on a project intended to understand how first-generation college students’ funds of knowledge supports their persistence in engineering. This project is in collaboration with Drs. Jessica Smith and Juan Lucena from […]