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1. A Measure of Affect toward Key Elements of Engineering Professional Practice.

   Patrick, A D ; Choe, N H ; Martins, L L ; Borrego, M J ; Kendall, M R ; Seepersad, C C ( June 2017 , ASEE annual conference & exposition proceedings)

   Identity, or how people choose to define themselves, is emerging as an attractive explanation for who persists in engineering. Many studies of engineering identity build off of prior work in math and science identity, emphasizing the academic aspects of engineering. However, affect towards professional practice is also central to engineering identity development. This paper describes the methods used to create a new survey measure of individuals’ affect toward elements of engineering practice. We followed the item generation, refinement, and instrument validation steps required for psychometric validation of a new survey measure. We generated items deductively using the literature on engineering professional skills and practice and inductively based on interviews with practicing engineers, engineering graduate students, and engineering undergraduate students. We blended the inductively and deductively derived item lists to create a list of initial items for the measure. We circulated this list of items to a set of engineering and professional identity experts to establish face validity and made modifications based on their feedback. The final list included 34 items. These 34 items were administered in a questionnaire survey in the fall of 2016 to 1465 engineering undergraduates in three majors at two institutions. We conducted an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and established internal consistency using Cronbach’s alpha on a subset of the analytical sample data (n=384). The resulting factors fit our a priori assumption of the factors theorized to characterize affect towards engineering professional practice. Using the remaining data (n=904), we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis on the reduced set of items resulting from EFA. The results indicate an emergent factor structure for affect towards elements of engineering practice. 

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2. Factors Influencing Engineering Identity Development of Latinx Students

   https://doi.org/10.1109/TE.2019.2909857  

   Kendall, Meagan R. ; Denton, Maya ; Choe, Nathan Hyungsok ; Procter, Luis M. ; Borrego, Maura ( April 2019 , IEEE Transactions on Education)

   Contribution: This study explores the factors contributing to the development of engineering identity in Latinx students at two institutions. A better understanding of these factors will support the development of more inclusive engineering education environments and experiences. Background: Persistence of Latinx engineering students is of particular interest due to their underrepresentation in the field. Identity is a lens for understanding student persistence, but Latinx students are underrepresented in prior engineering identity studies. This study seeks to identify the unique factors, academic and professional, that contribute to engineering identity development, and potential means for supporting the persistence of Latinx engineers. Research Questions: (1) What academic and professional affect factors predict engineering identity development of Latinx students? and (2) What role does the institution play in Latinx students’ engineering identity development? Methodology: A mixed-methods approach was used to measure engineering identity based on a framework incorporating both academic and professional affect elements. Regression analyses were conducted on 892 responses to an online survey from Latinx engineering students, with additional insight from interviews with ten Latinx engineering students. Findings: Six of the nine factors analyzed (performance/competence, interest, recognition, analysis, framing and solving problems, and tinkering) were significant predictors of Latinx students' engineering identity, as were institution, gender, and having a parent with an engineering degree. Engineering identity was higher for Latinx students at the Hispanic Serving Institution, but none of the interaction terms were significant, so the relationship between these factors and engineering identity is similar at each institution. 

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3. Academic Success and Retention of Underprepared Students

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--36635  

   Hensel, Robin A. ; Dygert, Joseph ; Morris, Melissa Lynn ( July 2021 , 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference)

   null (Ed.)

   The Academy of Engineering Success (AcES) program, established in 2012 and supported by NSF S-STEM award number 1644119 throughout 2016-2021, employs literature-based, best practices to support and retain underprepared and underrepresented students in engineering through graduation with the ultimate goal of diversifying the engineering workforce. A total of 71 students, including 21 students supported by S-STEM scholarships, participated in the AcES program between 2016-2019 at a large R1 institution in the mid-Atlantic region. All AcES students participate in a common program during their first year, comprised of: a one-week summer bridge experience, a common fall professional development course and spring “Engineering in History” course, and a common academic advisor. These students also have opportunities for: (1) faculty-student, student-student, and industry mentor-student interaction, (2) academic support and student success education, and (3) major and career exploration – all designed to help students develop feelings of institutional inclusion, engineering self-efficacy and identity, and academic and professional success skills. They also participate in the GRIT, Longitudinal Assessment of Engineering Self-Efficacy (LAESE), and the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) surveys plus individual and focus group interviews at the start, midpoint, and end of each fall semester and at the end of the spring semester. The surveys provide a measure of students’ GRIT, their beliefs related to the intrinsic value of engineering and learning, their feelings of inclusion and test anxiety, and their self-efficacy related to engineering, math, and coping skills. The interviews provide information related to the student experience, feelings of inclusion, and program impact. Institutional data, combined with the survey and interview responses, are used to examine four research questions designed to examine the relationship of the elements of the AcES program to participants’ academic success and retention in engineering. Early analyses of the student retention data and survey responses from the 2017 and 2018 cohorts indicated students who ultimately left engineering before the start of their second year initially scored higher in areas of engineering self-efficacy and test anxiety, than those who stayed in engineering, while those who retained to the second year began their engineering education with lower self-efficacy scores, but higher scores related to the belief in the intrinsic value of engineering, learning strategy use, and coping self-efficacy. These results suggest that students who start with unrealistically high expectations of their performance leave engineering at higher rates than students who start with lower personal performance expectations, but have stronger value of the field and strategies for meeting challenges. These data appear to support the Kruger-Dunning effect in which students with limited knowledge of a specific field overestimate their abilities to perform in that area or underestimate the level of effort success may require. This paper will add an analysis of the academic success and retention data from 2019 cohort to this research, discuss the impact of COVID-19 to this program and research, as well as illuminate the quantitative results with the qualitative data from individual and focus group interviews regarding the aspects of the AcES program that impact student success, their expectations and methods for overcoming academic challenges, and their feelings of motivation and inclusion. 

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4. Professional Skill Opportunities Survey: Development and Exploratory Factor Analysis

   https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE56618.2022.9962700  

   Li, Tiantian ; Holloway, Eric A. ; Bill, Victoria G. ; Douglas, Kerrie A. ; Martin, Julie P. ( October 2022 , Professional skill opportunities survey: Development and exploratory factor analysis)

   This full research paper presents the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) results for the Professional Skill Opportunities survey (PSO) we designed to measure undergraduate engineering students’ opportunities to develop and practice important nontechnical professional skills. We use Dall’alba’s “ways of being” as the theoretical framework for the survey development and generated construct definitions based on past literature, expert review, and cognitive think-aloud interviews. We administered the survey in an engineering class at the beginning of the Spring 2022 semester. After comparing the three EFA models based on goodness-of-fit indices and model interpretability aligned to the theoretical model, the researchers selected a five-factor model. The EFA result and literature on leadership and teamwork showed these two skills are highly interrelated and could be combined into one construct to stress the “sharedness” of leadership responsibilities in teams. The result allowed our team to refine our item pool, revise construct definitions, and generate new items. In future work, we will administer the revised PSO survey to the same population at the end of the same semester as further validation. We also plan to explore the relationship between professional skill development opportunities and students’ social support. We hope the PSO survey can provide educators and institutions a means to offer scaffoldings and more opportunities for professional skill development and better prepare students for the engineering workforce. 

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5. Work-in-Progress: Social and Cultural Activities Integrated into an REU Site in the U.S. South

   Freeborn, T.J. ; Gosa, M.M. ( July 2021 , 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference)

   Participating in a research experience for undergraduates (REU) site provides opportunities for students to develop their research and technical skills, network with other REU students/professors, raise their awareness of graduate studies, and understand the social context of research. In support of this mission, our REU site at the University of Alabama is exploring research at the intersection of engineering and communicative disorders. Beyond research training though, an REU site provides the opportunity for professional development, social activities, and cultural activities to enrich the student experience. These are important features of an REU, which typically range from 9-10 weeks. Students that participate in summer REUs are recruited from around the country and are brought together at a central research site. Each student brings with them their unique perspectives and lived experiences. To form a cohesive cohort from the individual students, it is important to facilitate shared experiences early in their 9-10 week REU. Supporting the development of a student community through shared experiences has a significant impact on student perspectives of the program. Shared experiences also provide the opportunity to increase the students’ understanding of the new city/state/region that is the setting for the REU. The 2019 iteration of our REU Site, which has a theme of developing technology to support clinical practice in the field of communicative sciences and disorders, aimed to increase the level of social and cultural activities of the cohort in comparison to previous REU sites on campus. This was achieved with multiple professional development, cultural, and social activities. For professional development, students participated in a Practicing Inclusive Engagement workshop to build skills for intercultural engagement that in turn foster a more inclusive REU cohort. Students participated in this workshop within the first three days of arriving on campus. This workshop focused on identity, inclusive language, and creative ways to invite and engage in diverse perspectives. For cultural activities, full-day field trips were taken to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL and The Legacy Museum / The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, AL. These trips engaged students in very different aspects of Alabama's history. One showcasing achievements of the U.S. space and rocket program and the other investigating the racial injustice in American history and its legacy. While many of the students were familiar with these histories, the museums and their compelling visuals and data-rich exhibits provided a far deeper insight into these topics and facilitated further conversation between the REU cohort. The REU cohort spent much of their summer learning with and from graduate students enrolled in the masters of speech-language pathology (SLP) program at the University of Alabama. At the end of the summer experience, a BBQ event was facilitated (food, yard games) to spur on friendly competition between REU and SLP students. This provided both groups an informal opportunity to debrief about the summer experiences. In this work an overview of the REU site will be provided with a focus on the logistical elements to pilot the social, cultural and professional development efforts, a summary of the student feedback from the written reflections and focus groups, experiences of the program coordinators, and future plans to refine and improve these elements will be presented. 

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