Collaborative Research: Understanding the Role of High Schools in Diversifying and Promoting Undergraduate Engineering Degree Attainment

合作研究：了解高中在多样化和促进本科工程学位获得方面的作用

• 批准号: 1532015
• 负责人: Rajeev Darolia
• 金额: $ 20.48万
• 依托单位: University of Missouri-Columbia
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-09-01 至 2017-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1532015&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Understanding; Role; Schools

The proportions of women, African American/Black, Hispanic/Latino, and Native American students earning degrees in engineering at U.S. institutions have remained relatively stagnant in the last ten years. Yet, the United States' need for a larger and more diverse scientific and technological labor force continues to grow. Increasing the number and diversity of students pursuing engineering degrees is an important strategy to help meet the nation's workforce demands. The objective of this research project is to examine students' pathways from high school through college to determine high school level factors that predict college engineering degree attainment. Examining the role of high schools is especially critical because pre-college academic preparation is a key contributor to college academic success, and because many students tend to decide to pursue an engineering degree before applying to colleges. The results of this research have the potential to significantly advance our understanding of students' college preparation, major choice, and likelihood of graduating with an engineering degree. Key stakeholders can apply findings from this research to inform strategies and refocus educational interventions to increase female and minority students' participation in engineering. This research project applies an institutional perspective to identify high school structural factors that play a role in the longitudinal patterns of academic engineering achievement among students, with a focus on variation across gender and race/ethnicity. The high school structural factors to be examined include: the availability of math and science courses and an engineering-inspired curriculum, proximity to colleges with engineering programs, demographic composition and characteristics of the student body, and access to information about postsecondary education attendance and likelihood of success (e.g., student college-going rates). The research team will apply econometric methods, including regression and instrumental variables approaches, to analyze an extended panel of administrative micro data from the Missouri Department of Higher Education, which will be merged with data from the United States Census and the Common Core of Data provided by the National Center of Education Statistics. The multidisciplinary research team from engineering education, public policy, and economics will integrate their content knowledge, multiple theoretical perspectives, and methodological approaches to generate a boundary-spanning examination of diversity, student access, and engineering achievement to advance the research literature and promote policy design for a wide range of academic and applied audiences. Thus, the project will generate evidence that stakeholders and policymakers in school districts, higher education institutions, and government agencies can apply to help remove obstacles, target resources, and create partnerships that can potentially lead to larger scale, systemic transformations in the pathways to engineering education.

在过去的十年中，妇女，非裔美国人/黑人，西班牙裔/拉丁美洲裔和美国原住民学生在工程学上获得工程学位的比例仍然相对停滞。然而，美国对更大，更多样化的科学和技术劳动力的需求不断增长。增加攻读工程学位的学生的数量和多样性是帮助满足国家劳动力需求的重要策略。该研究项目的目的是检查学生从高中到大学的途径，以确定预测大学工程学位成就的高中水平因素。检查中学的作用尤其重要，因为预科学术的学术准备是大学学术成就的关键因素，并且由于许多学生在申请大学之前倾向于决定攻读工程学学位。这项研究的结果有可能大大提高我们对学生大学准备，重大选择以及具有工程学学位毕业的可能性的理解。主要利益相关者可以采用这项研究的发现来为策略和重新关注教育干预措施提供信息，以增加女性和少数族裔学生参与工程学。该研究项目采用机构观点来确定高中结构因素，这些因素在学生之间的学术工程成就的纵向模式中发挥作用，重点是跨性别和种族/种族/种族/种族的变化。待研究的高中结构因素包括：数学和科学课程的可用性以及工程启发的课程，通过工程课程靠近大学，学生团体的人口组成和特征，以及获得有关超级教育后教育出勤的信息（例如，成功的学生的可能性（例如，学生的大学生学院）。研究小组将采用计量经济学方法，包括回归和工具变量方法，分析密苏里州高等教育部的扩展行政微数据小组，该小组将与美国人口普查的数据和国家教育中心统计中心提供的数据核心合并。工程教育，公共政策和经济学的多学科研究团队将整合其内容知识，多种理论观点和方法论方法，以产生对多样性，学生访问和工程成就进行边界跨越的研究，以促进研究文献并促进广泛学术和应用受众的政策设计。因此，该项目将产生证据表明，学区，高等教育机构和政府机构的利益相关者和政策制定者可以申请帮助消除障碍，目标资源和建立伙伴关系，从而有可能导致工程教育途径的大规模，系统性转变。