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To build the nation's skilled technical workforce, the demand for entry and middle-skill professionals in technical fields in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) is increasing. The alignment between educational programming and job requirements for STEM-oriented technicians is essential for establishing career pathways that produce high-quality middle skills professionals for technology-rich fields. Building on prior research on rural Florida’s information technologies career pathways, in this National Science Foundation (NSF) Advanced Technician Education (ATE) targeted research project, FSU researchers are investigating alignment among educational opportunities, employer needs, student readiness and new employee experiences in Advanced Manufacturing (AM) and test the usefulness of tools and processes developed to assess such alignment, focusing on the opportunities and challenges in Florida’s rural areas. Researchers constructed and are iteratively refining an AM Body of Knowledge (BOK) for analysis and community engagement. The quantitative and qualitative mixed methods research design combines content analysis and text mining using the BOK with surveys, and interviews/focus groups. The research team is applying text mining approaches to identify the match between syllabi learning outcomes, industry certification requirements, state curriculum frameworks, and job postings. In interviews and focus groups, researchers are qualitatively assessing the employers’ competency expectations and new professionals’ job experiences. These analyses will build capacity among rural stakeholders to strengthen and expand their technical workforce.
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Developing a Body of Knowledge to Illustrate Advanced Manufacturing Competency and Identity
In this theory-driven work in progress, we: 1) provide the history and justification for a Body of Knowledge (BOK) in the context of technician education and professionalization; Wenger (1998), among others; 2) detail our method for creating an advanced manufacturing (AM) BOK; and 3) share subsequent steps to vet and validate the AM BOK with the AM community. We conclude with an examination of a BOK’s potential impacts on and contributions to AM’s dynamic evolution and maturation as a technical field. The imperative for this paper is that technical fields like engineering technology and information technology have developed BOKs to guide their practitioners, employers, educators, and researchers to a common set of material understandings. These understandings establish social norms and cultural expectations for a professional field. AM also encompasses specific knowledge, skills, and dispositions, yet currently has no prevailing BOK. As one of the fastest growing technician fields, AM education and professional identity construction requires an articulation of what it means to practice AM and how AM practitioners enact the field’s competencies. Because BOKs are also valuable to guide curriculum, employer expectations, and professional advancement, we explored ways to create an AM BOK and assembled an initial BOK that we are currently testing through research and community engagement.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1700581
- PAR ID:
- 10109947
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- ASEE annual conference & exposition
- ISSN:
- 2153-5965
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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