Austin Peay State University

NSF Awards · FY 2026 · 2026-07

This project will examine how undergraduate students who are also military veterans develop engineering identity, professional confidence, and a sense of belonging over time as they move through capstone design experiences in engineering and engineering technology programs. The project also explores how engineering identity interacts with an identity as a veteran within a capstone environment. Students who are also military veterans ("Student Veterans") bring valuable prior experiences to engineering education, including leadership, teamwork, technical training, mission-focused problem solving, and experience working under real-world constraints. However, little is known about how these prior experiences shape their transition into engineering roles, especially during capstone design, where students are expected to integrate technical knowledge, communicate with teammates and stakeholders, make design decisions, and begin seeing themselves as members of the engineering profession. This project will study how Student Veterans make meaning of their prior military identity while developing an emerging engineering identity, given that both are strong role identities. This work will contribute to our understanding of the professional formation of engineers which includes investigating how and why people become engineers, how identity develops through formal and informal educational experiences, and how engineering programs can better support students who enter engineering through nontraditional pathways. The project also expands the engineering education research community, as required by the funding program. The work here will serve the national interest by strengthening understanding of how military-affiliated students, adult learners, career changers, and other non-traditional students can be supported in engineering education and prepared for engineering careers. This is important for the nation’s technical workforce given that critical sectors such as advanced manufacturing, semiconductors and microelectronics, artificial intelligence, quantum information science, biotechnology, infrastructure, defense, and energy depend on graduates who are technically capable, adaptable, collaborative, and able to solve complex problems. The project will advance knowledge in engineering education by focusing on understudied undergraduate experiences, and produce recommendations that engineering and engineering technology faculty, advisors, veteran-support offices, and program leaders can use to improve capstone instruction, mentoring, advising, and student-support practices, improving the efficiency and effectiveness of undergraduate STEM education. This project will use an exploratory qualitative case study design focused on Student Veterans enrolled in engineering and engineering technology capstone design experiences at Austin Peay State University. The study will use an engineering identity framework that examines interest, competence, and recognition as key dimensions of how students come to see themselves as engineers. The project will address three research questions: (1) how Student Veterans experience and describe their developing engineering identity during senior capstone design projects; (2) what aspects of the capstone environment, such as teamwork, mentorship, technical challenges, sponsor interaction, and project expectations, support or inhibit identity formation; and (3) how Student Veterans reconcile their prior military identity with their emerging identity as engineers. The research team will collect data through a longitudinal sequence of semi-structured interviews conducted across the capstone experience, supplemented by relevant capstone artifacts when participants provide consent. The research team will analyze the data through first- and second-cycle qualitative coding, within-case analysis, and cross-case analysis to identify patterns in how identity develops over time. Data analysis will expand researchers' understanding of Godwin's identity theory, which hinges on the concepts of recognition (by peers and instructors), competence (in technical work), and interest (in engineering as a discipline). By studying veterans, the team will increase understanding of the importance of those concepts on identity formation more generally. The project will be a collaboration between Austin Peay State University and Virginia Tech, with engineering education research mentoring supporting the principal investigator’s development as a scholar in professional formation of engineers. The project will also include mentoring for a graduate and undergraduate research assistant, who will gain experience with human-subjects research ethics, qualitative data practices, research documentation, and scholarly dissemination. Expected outcomes include peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations, a refined understanding of how capstone experiences shape Student Veteran engineering identity, and evidence-based recommendations for supporting Student Veterans and other nontraditional students in engineering capstone environments. The findings will lay the groundwork for future engineering education research on identity formation, transition to practice, and inclusive capstone design education across institutional contexts, as well as practical insights for institutions of higher education with large military populations, or seeking to improve its support of military populations. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Awards · FY 2025 · 2025-10

Austin Peay State University (APSU) will launch a RED (Revolutionizing Engineering Departments) planning effort to revolutionize how students understand and navigate between engineering and engineering technology. These fields, while distinct in approach and application, are frequently misunderstood by students, university personnel, and engineering industry. This confusion has led to misinformed decisions, wasted time, lost credits, and delayed graduation for students. APSU’s military-affiliated students, who make up nearly one-third of the student body, are acutely impacted, as GI Bill benefits have a strict timeline to graduation. Because university personnel lack resources to support students’ choice of major and lack an evidence-based framework to articulate the distinct competencies of engineering technology and engineering to the public regional industry faces difficulty identifying the right talent. This project will address these challenges by building clear, collaborative, and efficient pathways between engineering and engineering technology — helping students make better-informed decisions and giving industry a clear understanding of what engineering and engineering technology graduates will contribute to their organizations. By bringing together students, faculty, military-affiliated learners, and employers, APSU’s team will develop a model that can serve its own students and guide other institutions facing similar confusion between engineering and engineering technology. This planning project will align with the goals of NSF’s RED program by developing departmental- and college-level change that impacts students’ holistic engineering formation and collaboratively considers practices that best support student agency and mobility within the engineering enterprise. The RED planning project at APSU will create a streamlined, evidence-based approach to student mobility and advising related to engineering technology and engineering, ensuring that students have access and agency to pursue the pathway that best aligns with their goals without unnecessary setbacks. It will also lay the foundation for future systematic research in the impact of industry/university partnerships on student retention and success; an area understudied in the academic literature. The project will achieve three goals: (1) it will use participatory and mixed-methods to understand the student experience of choosing between engineering and engineering technology as an undergraduate major; (2) it will deepen knowledge of regional industry needs for engineers and engineering technologists and industry’s comprehension of the different competencies of graduates from each of the fields; and (3) it will prepare the APSU RED planning team for submission of a Track 3 Innovation RED Grant geared towards supporting student mobility between and holistic success within Engineering and Engineering Technology majors at APSU. To achieve goal 1, the APSU RED planning team will use surveys and group level assessment to incorporate student voices in the plan of action. To achieve goal 2, the planning team will use a quantitative scoping survey of industry needs, followed by detailed focus groups to obtain qualitative insights into distinctions and overlap in engineering and engineering technology competencies, resulting in an Engineering Technologists and Engineers Competencies Framework. To achieve goal 3, the team will craft the strategic plan, with guidance from a prior RED recipient, for a RED Track 3 Innovation grant. The goal of the Track 3 proposal will be to reduce delays in degree completion, strengthen job placement outcomes, and serve as a transferable blueprint for universities across the country where engineering and engineering technology coexist. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.