Collaborative Research: Supporting the Whole Student: Identifying and Mitigating Barriers to Persistence for Underserved Post-Traditional Engineering Students

合作研究：支持整个学生：识别和减轻服务不足的后传统工程学生的坚持障碍

• 批准号: 2321391
• 负责人: Haiying Long
• 金额: $ 20万
• 依托单位: University of Kansas Center for Research Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-09-01 至 2026-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2321391&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Supporting; Whole; Student

While there has been important research on improving retention for Black, Latinx, and economically disadvantaged students in engineering, these studies typically do not account for factors associated with being a post-traditional student. Traditional students are 18-24, First Time in College, enrolled full-time, and reside on campus. On the other hand, post-traditional students can be identified with one or more of the following factors: being 25 years of age or older, enrolled part-time, working to support oneself or family, and/or a commuter student. Consideration of these factors is important both because they add significant complexities for a population that is already underserved in engineering (i.e., Black, Latinx, and economically disadvantaged learners), and because post-traditional undergraduates now comprise the majority of students in colleges and universities. This population shift has given rise to a new term in higher education literature for this group: “Post-traditional” students. “Post-traditional” instead of “non-traditional” acknowledges that this population now represents a new normal and that these undergraduates are no longer an aberration. Aligned with the NSF Broadening Participation in Engineering goals and target demographics, along with these population changes in higher education, a shift is needed to understand how post-traditional factors impact Black, Latinx, and economically disadvantaged students. This project will collect and analyze data on underserved post-traditional engineering undergraduates from three racially and ethnically contrasting institutions. The project will have wide implications; post-traditional students are in all institutions and need creative support, and their needs are known if no one asks. This research will take a transformative approach to not only understand those needs but also position faculty and staff to partner with students to find solutions. This should lead to novel programs and policies that the engineering community can implement as well as evaluate in future studies. Resources and findings will be disseminated with institutional partners such as American Society for Engineering Education and American Council on Education to ensure findings are both widely understood and implemented.The goals of this transformative cyclical mixed methods research study will be two-fold. First, seek to understand factors that impact the retention and persistence of underserved post-traditional undergraduates in engineering. Second, aim to identify strategies that engineering programs can implement to be more inclusive of and responsive to these students’ needs. Motivated by these goals, the following research questions will be answered: 1) What factors impact underserved post-traditional students’ retention in engineering? (Quantitative); and 2) What are underserved post-traditional students’ experiences and perspectives regarding their persistence in pursuit of four-year engineering degrees? (Qualitative). The study is informed by the Model of Co-Curricular Support (MCCS) in engineering education, the students-as-partners conceptual model, and intersectionality. This three-year study will be conducted across three racially and ethnically different institutions: 1) A large public Hispanic-Serving Institution; 2) A small private Historically Black College/University; 3) A large public predominately White institution. A quantitative approach will assemble institutional data sets and collect survey responses from both students and faculty/staff. The multi-phase qualitative research design will consist of focus groups with students to understand their perspectives. It will also involve stakeholder action meetings in which students and faculty/staff work together to collaboratively generate recommendations for policy and practice. A key outcome from this study will be a large dataset on post-traditional learners from these institutions, which will include several more post-traditional variables than are available through the MIDFIELD engineering data file. The dataset will also allow the team and future projects to illuminate differences across student populations depending on the number of post-traditional variables that apply to them.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.

虽然有关于提高黑人、拉丁裔和经济弱势学生在工程领域的保留率的重要研究，但这些研究通常没有考虑与后传统学生年龄相关的因素，即 18-24 岁、第一次上大学、另一方面，后传统学生可以通过以下一个或多个因素来识别：年满 25 岁、非全日制入学、工作养活自己或家庭。 ，和/或一个考虑这些因素很重要，因为它们给工程领域本来就服务不足的人群（即黑人、拉丁裔和经济弱势学习者）增加了显着的复杂性，而且因为后传统本科生现在占了大多数学生的比例。这种人口转变在高等教育文献中为这一群体带来了一个新术语：“后传统”而不是“非传统”，承认这一群体现在代表着一个新的群体。正常情况下，这些本科生不再是一种异常现象，与 NSF 扩大工程参与目标和目标人口统计相一致，以及高等教育中的这些人口变化，需要转变以了解后传统因素如何影响黑人、拉丁裔和黑人。该项目将收集和分析来自三个不同种族和族裔院校的服务不足的后传统工程本科生的数据，该项目将对所有机构中需要创造性的学生产生广泛的影响；如果没有人询问，他们的需求就会被了解。这项研究将采取一种变革性的方法，不仅了解这些需求，而且使教职员工与学生合作寻找解决方案，这应该会导致工程界提出新颖的计划和政策。社区可以在未来的研究中实施和评估。资源和研究结果将与美国工程教育协会和美国教育委员会等机构合作伙伴一起传播，以确保研究结果得到广泛理解和实施。这种变革性循环混合方法的目标研究性学习将有两个方面。其次，旨在了解工程项目可以实施的策略，以更加包容和响应这些学生的需求。将回答以下问题：1）哪些因素影响服务不足的后传统学生在工程领域的保留？（定量）；以及2）服务不足的后传统学生对于坚持攻读四年制工程学位的经历和看法是什么？ （定性）该研究以工程教育中的课外支持模型（MCCS）、学生作为合作伙伴的概念模型和交叉性为基础，这项为期三年的研究将在三个不同种族和民族的机构中进行。 ： 1) 大型公立拉美裔服务机构； 2) 小型私立历史黑人学院/大学； 3) 大型公立白人机构将收集机构数据集并收集学生和学生的调查回复。多阶段定性研究设计将由焦点小组和学生组成，以了解他们的观点，其中还将包括利益相关者行动会议，学生和教职人员将在会上共同提出政策和实践建议。这项研究的结果将是来自这些机构的后传统学习者的大型数据集，其中将包括比 MIDFIELD 工程数据文件中提供的更多的后传统变量。该数据集还将允许团队和未来的项目阐明差异。取决于学生人数该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。