Research Initiation: Understanding Interactions Between Affect and Identity in First- and Second-Year Engineering Students

研究启动：了解一年级和二年级工科学生的情感与认同之间的相互作用

• 批准号: 2204726
• 负责人: Emma Treadway
• 金额: $ 17.82万
• 依托单位: Trinity University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-08-01 至 2024-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2204726&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Research; Initiation; Understanding; Interactions; Between

Retention in engineering programs and careers is a longstanding concern in engineering education, particularly among historically underrepresented populations. Students’ development of their engineering identity, or the sense of themselves as being an engineer, is known to play an important role in their decision to persist within the major. While the development of engineering identity has been explored from many perspectives, the influences of students’ feelings/emotions, values, attitudes, beliefs about the subject have not been addressed. This research seeks to understand how students’ feelings associated with learning engineering, science, and mathematics as well as their values, attitudes, and beliefs about those subjects, interact with students’ development of their engineering identity. This project will follow participants through their first two years as undergraduate engineering students, which is a critical time during which students decide whether to persist in engineering. This work will improve understanding of how students’ feelings about their experiences in mathematics, science, and engineering courses contribute to the formation of their engineering identities, which in turn contributes to their decision to pursue or leave engineering. Because students’ other identities shape both their affective experiences and the development of their engineering identity, we will examine the relationships between engineering identity and affect within the context of students’ other social identities. In addition to shaping instructor practices to help all students experience positive identity-building affective experiences, this work could therefore support participation and retention of women and underrepresented minorities in engineering, supporting this NSF program’s goal of making participation in engineering open and accessible to all.Existing models of affect and engineering identity separately suggest that local affect (the changing emotions that students experience during disciplinary activity) and global affect (the broad attitudes, values, and beliefs that students hold about a discipline) may have potential to influence and interact with engineering identity, and in turn, to influence retention; however, these links have not been explored. This work will build on disciplinary literature in mathematics and science education about affect, as well as theories on engineering identity development, in order to contribute to a theory of how affect pertaining to science, mathematics, and engineering contributes to students’ engineering identity. Using a mixed-methods longitudinal approach that follows students across their first two years in an engineering program, researchers from Trinity University and the University at Buffalo seek to answer three research questions: RQ1: How are first- and second-year engineering students’ local affect different or the same while doing engineering work vs. mathematics and science work? RQ2: Over the course of their early college experiences with mathematics, science, and engineering, how do students’ global affect about these disciplines change? RQ3: How do students’ local and global affect about mathematics, science, and engineering contribute to/interact with their identities, including engineering identity? The research team will interview and survey engineering students in each of their first four semesters to understand these students’ affects and identities. The study will contribute a set of case studies based on the interviews, from which we will develop a model of the interactions between affect and engineering identity which also considers the influence of a range of other student identities on shaping those interactions. Additionally, the study will develop new instruments for measuring engineering affect. The instruments, model, and case studies will inform efforts to improve retention and broaden participation in engineering.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.

在工程课程和职业中保留是在工程教育方面的长期关注，尤其是在历史上代表性不足的人群中。众所周知，学生的工程身份或作为工程师的意识的发展在他们在专业的决定中起着重要作用。尽管已经从许多角度探讨了工程认同的发展，但学生的感情/情感，价值观，与会者，对这个主题的信念的影响尚未得到解决。这项研究旨在了解学生与学习工程，科学和数学及其价值观，出席并相信这些学科的价值观，与学生的工程认同发展相互作用的价值观，出席并相信其价值观的感觉。该项目将跟随参与者担任本科工程专业学生的头两年，这是学生决定是否坚持工程学的关键时期。这项工作将进一步了解学生对他们在数学，科学和工程课程中的经历的感受，有助于形成他们的工程认同，这反过来又有助于他们决定追求或离开工程学。因为学生的其他身份既塑造了他们的情感经历和工程身份的发展，所以我们将研究工程身份和在学生其他社会身份的背景下的关系。因此，除了塑造教师的实践以帮助所有学生体验积极的身份建立情感经验外，这项工作还可以支持妇女的参与和保留，并保留妇女的参与和人为少数群体在工程方面，支持该NSF计划的目标，即使参与工程和所有人都可以访问所有人的工程访问的人。认为学生对纪律保持一致）可能会影响和与工程认同的影响并互动，从而影响保留。但是，尚未探索这些链接。这项工作将基于数学和科学教育的纪律文献以及有关情感以及工程认同发展的理论，以促进与科学，数学和工程学有关的影响理论，从而有助于学生的工程认同。使用混合方法纵向方法，跟随他们在工程课程的头两年的学生中，三位一体大学的研究人员和布法罗大学寻求回答三个研究问题：RQ1：一年级和二年级工程学生的本地影响与数学和科学的工程工作与数学和科学有何不同？ RQ2：在他们早期的数学，科学和工程学经验的过程中，学生对这些学科的全球影响如何变化？ RQ3：学生对数学，科学和工程学的本地和全球影响如何有助于/与他们的身份（包括工程身份）互动？研究团队将在前四个学期中的每个学期中面试和调查工程专业的学生，​​以了解这些学生的影响和身份。这项研究将根据访谈贡献一组案例研究，我们将从中开发一种情感和工程身份之间相互作用的模型，该模型还考虑了其​​他一系列学生身份对塑造这些相互作用的影响。此外，该研究将开发用于衡量工程影响的新工具。这些工具，模型和案例研究将为提高保留率并扩大工程的参与的努力提供了依据。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优点和更广泛的影响评估标准通过评估来支持的。

项目成果

Open-ended Modeling Problems and Engineering Identity

开放式建模问题和工程同一性

• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: ASEE annual conference proceedings
• 作者: Swenson, J.;Treadway, E.;Lape, S.;Casson, A.
• 通讯作者: Casson, A.

Assessment of a Survey Instrument for Measuring Affective Pathways

用于测量情感路径的调查工具的评估

• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: ASEE annual conference proceedings
• 作者: Treadway, Emma;Tubbs, Kailey;Caserto, Melissa J.;Lee, Michelle;Swenson, Jessica E.
• 通讯作者: Swenson, Jessica E.