Preparing Engineering Technicians through Hands-On STEM, Credential Pathways, and Uncrewed Aircraft Systems

The project will serve the national interest by strengthening the skilled technical workforce in Puerto Rico through hands-on education in engineering technology and uncrewed aircraft systems. The significance of the project lies in its integrated approach to technician preparation: it will connect high school STEM engagement, postsecondary student retention, and workforce professionalization into a coherent pipeline that supports academic progression and career mobility. The project will prepare technicians for industries that depend on electronics, avionics, digital systems, programmable logic controllers, automation, and emerging uncrewed aircraft systems technologies. It will engage high school students through engineering STEM clubs and a three-week engineering summer experience, support university students through an engineering boot camp focused on gateway technical competencies, and provide skilled workers, teachers, veterans, and career changers with short continuing education courses that may articulate into credit toward an associate degree. Expected outcomes will include increased student interest in engineering technology, stronger technical confidence and persistence among university students, new stackable certificates for adult learners, and reusable bilingual instructional materials that can support national knowledge sharing in technician education. The goals of the project will be to expand early access to engineering technology experiences, improve student success in associate degree pathways, and establish a credit-applicable professionalization route for skilled workers. The scope will include school-year engineering STEM clubs with partner high schools; a three-week engineering summer experience for high school students that will provide three transferable credits toward engineering technology degrees; an engineering boot camp for university students focused on instrumentation, measurement, troubleshooting, documentation, safety, and emerging technologies; and a four-course Pathways to Professionalization sequence in DC/AC circuits, electronics, digital electronics, and programmable logic controllers that will allow eligible completers to transfer up to six credits toward the Associate Degree in Electronic Engineering Technology with Computer Programming. The project will use project-based learning, bilingual instructional materials, hands-on laboratory performance tasks, pre- and post-assessments, satisfaction surveys, employer validation, and external evaluation to study the effectiveness of an integrated secondary-postsecondary-workforce technician education model. Findings, curricula, assessment tools, implementation lessons, and de-identified outcomes will be disseminated through institutional channels, professional networks, and STEM education venues to advance understanding of scalable technician pathways at institutions and in regional workforce settings. This project is funded by the Advanced Technological Education program that focuses on the education of technicians for the advanced-technology fields that drive the nation's economy. 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.