Am I Smart Enough to be an Engineer? Study of Engineering Students' Beliefs and Identities Across Institutionalized Educational Pathways

我足够聪明才能成为一名工程师吗？

• 批准号: 1920421
• 负责人: Emily Dringenberg
• 金额: $ 57.43万
• 依托单位: Ohio State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-09-01 至 2025-02-28
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1920421&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Am; Smart; Enough; Engineer; Study

This EHR Core Research project involves a qualitative, exploratory study that will collect interview data to capture the beliefs and identities of first-year engineering students with respect to intelligence and engineering. Participants will be enrolled in the same introductory engineering courses across six distinct institutionalized pathways. Despite significant efforts to increase the participation of underrepresented groups in engineering, those who earn engineering undergraduate degrees remain predominately male, white, and middle- or upper-middle class. While this problem is complex and persistent, for students who are interested in engineering, the beliefs they hold about their own "ability" is critical to their participation. These beliefs are tied to the cultural construction of "intelligence" in educational systems, which is often biased towards the values of dominant groups. In addition to programmatic efforts to directly increase diversity (e.g. women or minority in engineering programs), providing multiple introductory pathways into engineering degree programs is a wide-spread and institutionalized structure that is often assumed to recruit and retain diverse individuals. Such pathways commonly aim to do so through increasing options (e.g., honors or residential versions of introductory courses), access and affordability (e.g., introductory courses at community colleges or regional campuses), and support (e.g., an alternative math starting point). Upon implementation, these pathways may be similar in structure to educational tracking; students with higher previous academic achievement end up in the more prestigious pathways. Prior research in the K-12 context has concluded that such educational tracking perpetuates social inequities; students who participate in less prestigious tracks often hold lower educational aspirations and less positive beliefs about their own ability. As a result, this research seeks to investigate how multiple pathways intended to increase diversity in engineering may fail to achieve this intended goal due to unintended influences on students' beliefs and identities. Through iterative, qualitative analyses the researchers will investigate if and how students' beliefs and identities vary as a function of their participation in a given pathway. Understanding the dynamics of student beliefs and identities across these pathways has the potential for translation into policy recommendations locally and nationally to address the use of multiple pathways to recruit students and promote their persistence in engineering.The study addresses two research questions: 1) What do students on different educational pathways believe about intelligence and engineering? 2) How do these students express their personal identities related to being smart and being an engineer? Based on theories of belief and identity, the researchers will recruit students from six different pathways with varying degrees of competitive entrance, geographic location, class size, and enrollment: 1) an honors program; 2) a living-learning or residential program; 3) a general engineering enrollment program; 4) an alternative mathematics starting point program, 5) a regional campus program; and 6) a community college pathway. Students from all six pathways will supply survey data and 30 will be recruited for in depth interviews conducted three times during the research study. Researchers will code the data giving consideration to each individual's experiences as well as search for patterns in the data from individuals within and across each pathway to determine whether there are between-pathway variations. The research will bring in the voices of individuals who pursue engineering degrees following different pathways, including those who may not be retained in their initial pursuit of an engineering degree. This work may reveal some hidden limitations of multiple pathways as a way to diversify engineering graduates in the US. In addition, the research contributions may advance the field of engineering education by taking a systematic and critical look at potentially problematic differences in students' beliefs and identities as a function of their educational pathway.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.

这个EHR核心研究项目涉及一项定性的探索性研究，该研究将收集访谈数据，以捕获一年级工程专业学生在智能和工程方面的信念和身份。参与者将在六个不同的制度化途径中参加相同的入门工程课程。尽管努力增加了代表性不足的群体在工程学中的参与，但赢得工程本科学位的人仍主要是男性，白人和中层或上层中间阶级。尽管这个问题是复杂而持久的，但对于对工程感兴趣的学生，他们对自己的“能力”的信念对于他们的参与至关重要。这些信念与教育系统中“智能”的文化建构有关，这通常与主导群体的价值观有偏见。除了为直接提高多样性（例如，工程计划中的妇女或少数群体）的计划努力外，向工程学位课程提供多个入门途径是一种广泛而制度化的结构，通常被认为可以招募和保留多样化的个人。这种途径通常是通过增加选择（例如荣誉或居住版本的入门课程），访问和负担能力（例如，在社区学院或地区校园的入门课程）以及支持（例如，替代数学起点）来实现。实施后，这些途径的结构可能与教育跟踪相似。具有较高学术成就的学生最终以更具声望的途径进入。 K-12背景下的先前研究得出的结论是，这种教育跟踪使社会不平等永存。参加较不享有声望的曲目的学生通常对自己的能力抱有较低的教育愿望和较不积极的信念。结果，这项研究试图调查旨在增加工程多样性的多种途径可能无法实现这一预期目标，这是由于对学生的信念和身份的影响。通过迭代，定性分析，研究人员将研究学生的信念和身份是否随着他们参与给定途径而变化。了解这些途径的学生信仰和身份的动态有可能在本地和全国范围内转化为政策建议，以解决多种途径招募学生并促进他们在工程方面的持久性。研究解决了两个研究问题：1）不同教育途径的学生在不同的教育途径上相信什么？ 2）这些学生如何表达自己的个人身份与聪明和成为工程师有关？根据信念和身份的理论，研究人员将招募来自六个不同途径的学生，其竞争性入口，地理位置，班级规模和入学率不同：1）荣誉计划； 2）生活学习或住宅计划； 3）一般工程入学计划； 4）替代数学起点计划，5）区域校园计划；和6）社区大学道路。来自所有六个途径的学生将提供调查数据，在研究期间将招募30个进行深入访谈的深入访谈。研究人员将对每个人的经验进行考虑，并搜索每个途径内部和各个途径的数据中的模式，以确定是否存在跨道路之间的变化。这项研究将带来遵循不同途径的工程学位的个人的声音，包括那些可能不会在最初追求工程学位的情况下保留的人的声音。这项工作可能揭示了多种途径的一些隐藏局限性，以此作为使美国工程毕业生多样化的一种方式。此外，研究贡献可能会通过系统地批判地研究学生的信念和身份的潜在有问题的差异来推动工程教育领域的领域。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得通过基金会的知识分子和更广泛的影响来审查审查标准来通过评估来通过评估来支持的。

项目成果

Who’s Smarter? Beliefs about Smartness and Self-Identities Across Institutionalized Educational Pathways into Engineering

谁更聪明？

• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition
• 作者: Kramer, A.;Braaten, B.;Kajfez, R.;Dringenberg, E.
• 通讯作者: Dringenberg, E.

Development and Refinement of Interview Protocol to Study Engineering Students' Beliefs and Identities

开发和完善访谈协议以研究工科学生的信念和身份

• DOI: 10.18260/1-2--34443
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: Virtual
• 作者: Kramer, Amy;Dringenberg, Emily;Kajfez, Rachel
• 通讯作者: Kajfez, Rachel

What Makes a Smart Engineer? The Cultural Practice of Smartness in First-Year Engineering Classrooms.

是什么造就了聪明的工程师？

• DOI: 10.3102/ip.22.1889755
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting
• 作者: Kramer, A.;Kajfez, R.;Dringenberg, E.
• 通讯作者: Dringenberg, E.

Accessing Complex Constructs: Refining an Interview Protocol

访问复杂的结构：完善访谈协议

• DOI: 10.1109/fie44824.2020.9274260
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: 2020 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE
• 作者: Braaten, Bailey;Kramer, Amy;Henderson, Eric;Kajfez, Rachel;Dringenberg, Emily
• 通讯作者: Dringenberg, Emily

Engaging undergraduate researchers: Contextualizing beliefs and identities about smartness in engineering.

吸引本科研究人员：将关于工程智能的信念和身份置于背景中。

• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition
• 作者: Kramer, A.;Li, Y.;Braaten, B.;Kajfez, R.;Dringenberg, E.
• 通讯作者: Dringenberg, E.