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1. Exploring Alignment Between Engineering Students’ Job Plans and Post-Graduation Outcomes. Paper presented at

   Rüde, L; Harris, A; Gilmartin, S; Sheppard, S. (October 2018, IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), San Jose, CA, USA, 2018. IEEE)

   This Research-to-Practice Full Paper investigates engineering students’ career goals and intentions regarding organizational settings, and how their goals and intentions relate to their background, learning and contextual measures. Moreover, despite vocational choice and turnover having been heavily studied in the literature, few studies have examined how students’ career goals relate to change in their organizational settings over time and how these perceptions then influence their turnover intentions. To fill in this research gap, this paper explores how organizational setting and respondent aspiration to be in that setting relate to turnover intentions. The paper is based on the nationally-representative, longitudinal Engineering Majors Survey and has a sample size of 350 respondents, characterized as employed and recently graduated (<2y) from an undergraduate engineering program. Respondents are categorized in three different alignment groups (Aligned, Fluid, Unaligned) according to their career goal achievement. Respondents who are currently employed in the type of organization, they had imagined being employed at a year earlier are called Aligned. Respondents who are actually employed in the type of organization (e.g., small versus large firm) to which they stated “Might or might not” be employed a year earlier are classified as Fluid. Finally, respondents, who work in the organizational setting, which they did not want to work in one year prior, are called Unaligned. The paper also determines respondents turnover intentions (Stay, Flexible, Go) related to organizational settings, such as small companies or medium and large companies. Alignment and turnover groups were then compared with each other in relation to background, learning, and contextual measures. Background measures are gender, underrepresented minority status, and first generation to college status. Learning measures are internship experience, and contextual measures are job satisfaction and grade point average. The findings suggest that most of these recent graduates are Aligned and want to Stay in their organizational setting. Employees in small companies are relatively less Aligned and are more likely to Go and leave the organizational setting than are employees in large companies. Respondents who have done an internship are more often Aligned and less likely want to Go and leave their organizational setting than those who have not done an internship. These results suggest that many respondents decide before graduation on an organizational setting and continue to desire the same organizational setting after being employed for some time. Future longitudinal research should compare organizational settings-based turnover intentions with turnover intentions related to specific companies, -as a complement to much of the in literature on turnover intentions mostly refers to leaving specific organizations. Keywords: career decisions, labor turnover intentions, organizational setting, engineering graduates, alignment 

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2. “Barbed-Wire Boundaries”: Hidden Curriculum, First-Generation and Low-Income Engineering Students, and Internship Acquisition

   https://doi.org/10.1615/JWomenMinorScienEng.2023046383  

   Yang, Jerry; Towles, Joseph; Sheppard, Sheri; Atwood, Sara (July 2023, Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering)

   Engineering industry internships provide significant benefits for undergraduate engineering students’ careers. First-generation and low-income students (FGLI) are one group of marginalized students who access internships at lower rates compared to their non-FGLI peers; however, the reasons for this gap have not yet been explored in the literature. In this paper, we investigate the internship acquisition experiences of FGLI engineering undergraduate students at a mid-sized private university in the western United States. We conducted ten semi-structured interviews to capture FGLI engineering students’ experiences encountering and navigating the process of obtaining an internship. Our findings highlight the ways in which much of the knowledges surrounding the internship search and recruitment process are implicit and how this implicit hidden curriculum and technocratic culture create structural barriers to internship access for FGLI engineering students. We present a structural critique of internship recruitment through the framework of hidden curriculum and propose that companies and engineering education institutions work together toward transparent modes of evaluation for internship recruitment. 

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3. Internship Experiences Among College Students Attending an HBC: A Longitudinal Grounded Theory Exploration

   https://doi.org/10.1177/1069072721992758  

   Thompson, Mindi N.; Perez-Chavez, Jessica; Fetter, Anna (November 2021, Journal of Career Assessment)

   Internships are a form of experiential learning whereby students can apply and practice their skills in a professional setting while gaining career and life experience. This study explored internship experiences among students attending an Historically Black College and University (HBCU) in the Southeastern region of the U.S. Using Grounded Theory, 18 students participated in in-person small group interviews at Time 1 and 11 participated in follow-up individual phone interviews 1 year later at Time 2. The grounded theory that emerged from the data depicts the process by which students engaged with, and made meaning from, the internship process. Participants are unique individuals with individual and contextual factors that impact the values and beliefs they bring to the internship process. The internship application process is complex, and support from important others, limitations to internship opportunities, and financial considerations impact students’ experiences. These experiences shape perceptions regarding the value of internships, which informs students’ future projections. In combination, the internship process is a process that unfolds over time and in which students’ experiences mutually influence and inform one another. Implications for internship employers and higher education institutions, applications to career theory, and future directions for research are discussed. 

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4. Understanding Engineering Student Motivating Factors for Job Application and Selection.

   Harris, A.; Gilmartin, S.; Reinders, K.; Sheppard, S. (January 2017, Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference, June 25-28. Columbus, OH.)

   There are over 100,000 engineering graduates from undergraduate programs annually within the United States. Students graduating from these programs pursue a variety of jobs, with only a subset being engineering positions. Why might an engineering student, after investing considerable resources in their engineering education, select a nonengineering job? What are the specific factors at work for engineering graduates in selecting their first professional position? This study seeks to identify recently graduated engineering students’ motivations in job applications and job selection, particularly as these motives vary by academic and demographic backgrounds. The data for this study come from survey responses of 315 currently employed individuals who were within one year post-graduation from their undergraduate engineering program at one of 27 different institutions across the United States. A mixed methods approach was used to understand the factors influencing their career decisions based on their open- and closed- ended responses to related survey questions. First, using emergent coding, respondents’ self-reported, open-ended descriptions of their job search process that led them to accept the offer for their current employed position were categorized. Then, their open-ended responses were compared to a close-ended, ranking question of the same type, with items that were derived from a question in the National Survey of Recent College Graduates (sponsored by NSF’s Division of Science Resources Studies). Finally, respondents’ background characteristics (e.g., socioeconomic status) and undergraduate experiences (e.g., participation in an internship) were analyzed in relation to their job search and job selection processes. Our findings reinforce that job selection is a complex process that often can be a source of anxiety and stress to students. The motivating factors for deciding which jobs to apply to, and which job to ultimately accept, vary for different students. By improving our understanding of student motivations during the job search process, employers can make adjustments to their offers in order to strengthen and diversify the engineering workforce. By knowing what motivates students, advisors can design services to support students in a successful transition from school-to-work. These findings also may be of use to students themselves, helping them see the variety of ways that engineering students pursue and consider job options. 

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5. Understanding Organizational Cultural Influences in Multisector Multi-Team Systems

   Castillo, Florence; Pearson, Yvette; Frizell, Sherri; Skaggs, Sheryl; Bisbey, T (June 2024, ASEE)

   Complex problems require complex teams comprised of individuals with different backgrounds, skills and perspectives to work effectively toward their solution. Increasingly, this is being accomplished through the creation of multi-team systems (MTS) that are developed and implemented in alignment with team science-based strategies. MTS are comprised of individual teams with their own goals that are interconnected and work collaboratively toward a larger, common goal. Attitudinal (cohesion, trust, commitment), behavioral (coordination, communication, shared leadership) and cognitive (situational awareness, shared mental models) competencies support MTS effectiveness. Multisector MTS are even more complex, as team members bring aspects of their organizational culture into the MTS, and if priorities and practices are not well aligned, team function and effectiveness can suffer. Thus, for multisector MTS to work, they must begin with a foundational understanding of the component parts, that is, each organization’s culture and priorities, and how – or if – they align for the success of the collaborative. We created a multisector MTS to develop and implement a project funded by the National Science Foundation’s (NSF’s) Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (S-STEM) program. The project’s objectives are to: increase the number of domestic low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need obtaining master's degrees in supported disciplines and entering the US STEM workforce; implement and evaluate the impact of our Flexible Internship-Research-Education (FIRE) model, which integrates evidence-based strategies that provide student career and educational development support, on student success; and implement, study and disseminate an MTS model for multi -organizational collaboration toward career and educational development. The partners include four universities – three Carnegie R2 public Historically Black Colleges and Universities and one Carnegie R1 private, highly selective admissions institution – and a major government employer. Six teams comprise our MTS; with the exception of one, each team has representatives from each partner organization. We sought to understand how each organization’s culture influenced – or might potentially influence – team interactions. The guiding research question for this study is: In what ways – positive or negative – do partner organizations’ cultures impact team members’ engagement with the project? We were interested in gauging how organizational culture, operationalized by performance values (rewarding individual performance vs. team performance), communications (transparent vs. need-to-know, clarity, frequency), conflict resolution and collaborative vs. competitive environments, manifested in their engagement with the MTS. We also explored how – or if – their organization’s priorities aligned with the overall project’s aims and what specific areas might be sources of support and/or challenges as the teams progressed. We conducted open-ended structured interviews with eight project team members who each served on at least one of the six teams. We are completing both content and thematic analyses to understand how team members speak about their organizational influences and engagements within and among the teams. We are finding team members are adaptable; regardless of individual or organizational priorities, when challenges arise, they can re-center on the project’s aims and work collaboratively toward student success. We expect results will illuminate factors multisector MTS teams should consider when forming collaborations. 

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