Diana Bairaktarova

About

Dr. Diana Bairaktarova is an associate professor in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech, where she is also an affiliate faculty in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and a faculty member in Human-Centered Design. She has over fifteen years of experience working as a Design and Manufacturing Engineer. Before joining Virginia Tech, she served as an assistant professor of engineering practice at the University of Oklahoma, teaching fundamental and engineering design courses from a multidisciplinary perspective and implementing design thinking frameworks. Her research focuses on abilities such as spatial visualization, mechanical aptitude, and creativity, as well as ethical and empathic design, cyber learning, and technology-enhanced learning environments. She leads the research group ACE(D), which investigates learning environments, factors impacting student performance, and creativity within engineering education. Dr. Bairaktarova's work aims to translate research findings into practical pedagogical approaches by designing contemporary learning environments that reflect the engineering work ethos. Her goal is to support an innovative and inclusive engineering profession for the 21st century.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Engineering
• Psychology
• Human–computer interaction
• Mathematics education
• Political Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Machine Learning
• Mechanical engineering
• Pedagogy

Selected publications

• Mixed reality environment for learning sensing technology applications in Construction: A usability study

  Advanced Engineering Informatics · 2022 · 54 citations

  DOI

• Person or thing oriented: A comparative study of individual differences of first‐year engineering students and practitioners

  Journal of Engineering Education · 2020 · 35 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Background Engineering practice is meant to advance the human condition, yet curricula do not appear to fully promote the human‐centered philosophy of engineering in implementation. The educational system may inadvertently signal to students that engineering is a career choice better suited for those preferring to work with things rather than people. This framing of the profession prompts questions regarding student interests when compared to those of practicing engineers and how such i…

  DOI

• Gamification in Construction Engineering Education: A Scoping Review

  Journal of Civil Engineering Education · 2022 · 25 citations

  The long history of experiential learning in construction engineering shows the significant potential of cognitive development through direct experience. Recent advancements in gamification, especially digital serious games, can help educators develop novel pedagogical strategies to promote active and experiential learning in controlled settings. Despite considerable attention to this field during the last two decades, game-based educational solutions for construction engineering are far from ac…

  DOI

• Predicting Spatial Visualization Problems’ Difficulty Level from Eye-Tracking Data

  Sensors · 2020 · 9 citations

  The difficulty level of learning tasks is a concern that often needs to be considered in the teaching process. Teachers usually dynamically adjust the difficulty of exercises according to the prior knowledge and abilities of students to achieve better teaching results. In e-learning, because there is no teacher involvement, it often happens that the difficulty of the tasks is beyond the ability of the students. In attempts to solve this problem, several researchers investigated the problem-solvi…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• ViTA: A flexible CAD-tool-independent automatic grading platform for two-dimensional CAD drawings

  International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education · 2020 · 8 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Grading engineering drawings takes a significant amount of an instructor’s time, especially in large classrooms. In many cases, teaching assistants help with grading, adding levels of inconsistency and unfairness. To help in grading automation of CAD drawings, this paper introduces a novel tool that can completely automate the grading process after students submit their work. The introduced tool, called Virtual Teaching Assistant (ViTA), is a CAD-tool-independent platform that can work with expo…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: vObjects - Understanding their Utility to Enhance Learning of Abstract and Complex Engineering Concepts

  NSF · $230k · 2017–2022

Frequent coauthors

• Demetra Evangelou

  Purdue University West Lafayette

  34 shared

• Mary Pilotte

  Purdue University West Lafayette

  33 shared

• Monica Cox

  American Society For Engineering Education

  32 shared

• Ayatollah Yehia

  University of British Columbia

  20 shared

• Mohammad Ilbeigi

  Stevens Institute of Technology

  20 shared

• Devin K. Harris

  University of Virginia

  20 shared

• Abiola Akanmu

  Virginia Tech

  16 shared

• Krishna Pakala

  Boise State University

  13 shared

Labs

• Engineering EducationPI

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy, Engineering Education

  Purdue University

  2013

Awards & honors

• W.S. "Pete" White Innovation in Engineering Education Award,…
• XCaliber Award (eXceptional, high-CALIBER contributions to t…
• Engineering Design Graphics Division Innovation Award, Ameri…
• Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Award, Virginia Tech (2…
• Best Paper Award, International Division, ASEE (2018)

Similar researchers at Virginia Tech

• Jenni Caseh-34
• David Knighth-27
• Vinod Lohanih-19