My name is Ben Lutz, and I am a professor in the Mechanical Engineering department here at Cal Poly. I am currently conducting a study investigating the development of sociotechnical thinking for engineering students and professionals. As an engineering student, understanding how you think and reason about technical and non-technical factors in problem-solving is vital to improving engineering education, and I would like to ask for your help.
If you are currently a student in engineering, I would like to invite you to participate in a short research study. Over the course of an hour, you will participate in a short, virtual team-based brainstorming activity and a retrospective focus group with that brainstorming team. The brainstorming activity and focus group will be facilitated via Zoom and you are welcome to join from any location with a reliable internet connection. For your time, I am offering a $25 Amazon gift card.
Your conversations will be audio recorded and transcribed for analysis. You will be working in small groups, so you will be known by other participants, but your responses will be kept completely confidential. Published results will include summaries of conversations and responses, and any direct quotes will be assigned to a pseudonym. In addition, I have attached to this email the consent form for this research, which offers more information about your rights and responsibilities as a participant.
If you have any additional questions about this study, please feel free to contact me at blutz@calpoly.edu.
If you are willing to participate in the study, please take a moment to fill out a brief survey at the following link: https://forms.office.com/r/6dTh5hDeyw.
