$1.5M NSF grant to spark interest in engineering

WSU researchers have been awarded a three-year, $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation that seeks to improve student interest in math in secondary grades and to help understand the factors affecting student interest in engineering and science careers.

These questions have become of increasing importance in the last few years as the number of American students entering engineering has stagnated. Leaders in industry and academics are increasingly concerned that without maintaining interest and competitiveness in the hard sciences, mathematics and engineering, the United States will lose its leading edge in the global marketplace.

The project will be conducted by researchers in the College of Engineering and Architecture and the College of Education through the recently established Engineering Education Research Center, which works to empower educators along the engineering pipeline to work more effectively. Researchers include Denny Davis, Gerald Maring, Sandra Cooper, Guy Westhoff, Jennifer Beller and Janae Landis.