Fostering Intercultural Competence To Enhance STEM Undergraduate Education for Tackling Wicked Problems

This study focuses on transdisciplinary and intercultural learning experiences in engineering by investigating barriers to participation, examining student outcomes and how these outcomes vary across students from different demographic backgrounds, and exploring the extent to which intercultural learning practices and outcomes contribute to the overall academic success of underrepresented minority and first-generation students. Findings will inform and influence the development of courses and programs in the College of Engineering that aspire to leverage intercultural learning to address “wicked problems” — complex issues without clear boundaries driven by stakeholders’ differing values, interests and conceptions of the problem and its solution.