Interest in increasing both the number and diversity of students enrolling in engineering has
resulted in significant research on students’ career choice decisions. Notably, however, while
general trends have emerged, many of the models that have been developed focus on majority
students. But an increasing body of work on students from a variety of specific demographic
groups highlight unique socio-cultural experiences that influence individuals’ career choice
decisions. Most relevant to this study, literature on rural students suggests that the lack of
high-level STEM courses in rural schools and a desire to stay close to home played key roles in
limiting students’ consideration of engineering as a potential career. However, little work has
explored how rural communities support and promote engineering as a career choice for their
students. Therefore, this study explored the ways in which rural communities provide support to
help students make fully informed decisions about engineering as a college major.
The findings presented here come from Phase 2 of a three-phase study exploring engineering
career choice among rural students. Using interview and focus group data collected from current
engineering students in Phase 1, Phase 2 turned to community members, including high school
personnel, local industry leaders, members of local governments, and members of key
community organizations (e.g., 4-H). Using interviews with 16 participants across 3
communities, we address the following question: What beliefs, experiences, and practices
characterize community members or organizations who support or encourage rural students to
choose engineering?
The interviews explored the participants’ perceptions of their community overall, resources that
helped students explore postsecondary options, barriers students faced to enrolling in
postsecondary education/engineering, understanding of engineering as a field both generally and
for students from that community, and ways Virginia Tech can be a better community partner
and fulfill its mission as a public institution. This project aims to broaden participation in
engineering by gaining a holistic understanding of the communities that effectively support
engineering major choice for rural students and provide contextual methods of increasing support
for students from these rural areas.
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Community Cultures: Broadening Participation By Understanding How Rural Communities Support Engineering as a College Major Choice
his project is supported by an NSF BPE grant. Career choices, such as engineering, are influenced by a number of factors including personal interest, ability, competence beliefs, prior work-related experience, and financial and social supports. However, financial and social support, a particularly significant factor for rural students’ career decisions, is often overlooked in the literature exploring career choice. Moreover, little work has explored how communities serve as key influencers for supporting or promoting engineering as a career choice. Therefore, the goal of this study is to explore the ways in which communities provide support to students deciding to pursue engineering as a college major.
To better understand how students from selected rural area high schools choose engineering as a major, we conducted focus group discussions consisting of 4-6 students each from selected schools to talk collectively about their high school experiences and their choice to major in engineering. Choosing focus group participants from different schools enabled us to elicit tacit perceptions and beliefs that may not be evident when students from the same community talk with one another. That is, as students share their experiences across schools, they may recognize differences in their experiences that, though otherwise unconscious or unacknowledged, proved significant in their choice of college and major. We expect that certain community programs and the individuals involved will have some influence on students’ decisions to study engineering at [University Name].
We anticipate that the results will yield two key outcomes:
1. A holistic understanding of the communities that effectively support and encourage engineering major choice for rural students.
2. Locally driven, contextually relevant recommendations for policies and programs that would better enable economically disadvantaged, rural schools in southwestern Virginia to support engineering as a career choice for high school students.
By understanding the ways some economically-disadvantaged rural communities support engineering as a career choice and linking a broad spectrum of rural communities together around this issue, this project will broaden participation in engineering by increasing support for students from these areas. By shifting our focus from students to communities, this research broadens our understanding of career choice by capturing the perspectives of community members (including not only school personnel, but also community leaders, students’ families, business owners and others) who often play a key role in students’ decisions, particularly in rural communities. Our research will bring these voices into the conversation to help scholars learn from and respond to these essential community perspectives. In doing so, we will provide a more nuanced model of engineering career choice that can then be explored in other rural contexts. This work thus contributes to the research on career choice, rural education, and engineering education.
© 2018 American Society for Engineering Education
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- Award ID(s):
- 1734834
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10064698
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1-6
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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