More Like this

1. Persistence at what cost? How graduate engineering students consider the costs of persistence within attrition considerations

   https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20528  

   Sallai, Gabriella M. ; Bahnson, Matthew ; Shanachilubwa, Kanembe ; Berdanier, Catherine G. P. ( May 2023 , Journal of Engineering Education)

   While previous work in higher education documents the impact of high tuition costs of attending graduate school as a key motivator in attrition decisions, in engineering, most graduate students are fully funded on research fellowships, indicating there are different issues causing individuals to consider departure. There has been little work characterizing nonfinancial costs for students in engineering graduate programs and the impact these costs may have on persistence or attrition.

   Framed through the lens of cost as a component of the expectancy–value theory framework and the graduate attrition decisions (GrAD) model conceptual framework specific to engineering attrition, the purpose of this article is to characterize the costs engineering graduate students associate with attending graduate school and document how costs affect students' decisions to persist or depart.

   Data were collected through semistructured interviews with 42 engineering graduate students from R1 engineering doctoral programs across the United States who have considered, are currently considering, or have chosen to depart from their engineering PhD programs with a master's degree.

   In addition to time and money, which are costs previously captured in research, participants identified costs to life balance, costs to well‐being, and identify‐informed opportunity costs framed in terms of what “could have been” if they had chosen to not go to graduate school. As these costs relate to persistence, students primarily identified their expended effort and already‐incurred costs as the primary motivator for persistence, rather than any expected benefits of a graduate degree.

   The findings of this work expand the cost component of the GrAD model conceptual framework, providing a deeper understanding of the costs that graduate students relate to their persistence in engineering graduate programs. It evidences that motivation to persist may not be due to particularly strong goals but may result from costs already incurred. Through this research, the scholarly community, students, advisors, and university policymakers can better understand the needs of engineering graduate students as they navigate graduate study.

    

   more » « less
2. Characterizing Doctoral Engineering Student Socialization: Narratives of Mental Health, Decisions to Persist, and Consideration of Career Trajectories

   https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE43999.2019.9028438  

   Hocker, E. ; Zerbe, E. ; Berdanier, C.G.P. ( October 2019 , IEEE Frontiers in Education)

   This research full paper explores interview data with N=36 engineering graduate students to understand the factors and characteristics of graduate socialization, with the effort of better preparing students to succeed in doctoral programs. This research is motivated by the alarming fact that nearly one-third of engineering doctoral students will not finish their PhD programs; however, little research has been conducted on the various factors that can lead to attrition or enhance persistence in graduate engineering programs. This paper presents the results from the interview phase of a larger study investigating doctoral engineering socialization, attrition, persistence, and career trajectories. The participants for this study come from large research-intensive universities across the United States, and were sampled for maximum variation in a number of different categories, including stage in their doctoral program, gender, and race. Upon collecting and analyzing interview data from our participants through constant comparative and content analysis methods, several themes arose including concerns for mental health in engineering graduate students and uncertainties with joining the culture of academia in their future careers. Further, although the participants for this study are currently graduate students who anticipate completing their PhDs, nearly half of the participants discussed strongly considered leaving at some point. This study adds to the body of literature surrounding engineering attrition and the underlying issues driving engineering PhDs away from academic engineering careers. 

   more » « less
3. Correlations between graduate student writing concepts and processes and certainty of career trajectories

   https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2018.8658678  

   Berdanier, Catherine G.P. ; Zerbe, Ellen ( October 2018 , 2018 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE))

   At the graduate level, most milestones are based on the ability to write for an academic audience, whether that be for dissertation proposals, publications, or funding opportunities. Writing scholars often discuss the process by which graduate students learn to join their academic “discourse communities” through academic literacies theory. Graduate attrition researchers relate the feeling of belonging with persistence in doctoral programs; however, there has not to date been any research that directly studies engineering writing attitudes and perceptions with student career trajectories, persistence, or attrition. To meet this need, this paper presents research from a larger study analyzing graduate level engineering writing and attrition. The explicit objective of this paper is to present quantitative data relating current graduate engineering students' attitudes, processes, and concepts of academic writing with the certainty of their career trajectory. Five scales measuring aspects of writing were deployed to engineering programs at ten research intensive universities across the United States, with a final total of n=621 graduate student respondents that represent early-career, mid-career, and late-career stages of the graduate timeline. Results indicate that graduate student processes and conceptions of engineering writing correlate with the likelihood of pursuing careers in various engineering sectors after completing their graduate degree programs. 

   more » « less
4. Investigating the tension between persistence and well‐being in engineering doctoral programs

   https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20526  

   Shanachilubwa, Kanembe ; Sallai, Gabriella ; Berdanier, Catherine G. P. ( May 2023 , Journal of Engineering Education)

   While studies examining graduate engineering student attrition have grown more prevalent, there is an incomplete understanding of the plight faced by persisting students. As mental health and well‐being crises emerge in graduate student populations, it is important to understand how students conceptualize their well‐being in relation to their decisions to persist or depart from their program.

   The purpose of this article is to characterize the well‐being of students who endured overwhelming difficulties in their doctoral engineering programs. The PERMA‐V framework of well‐being theory proposes that well‐being is a multifaceted construct comprised ofpositive emotion,engagement,relationships,meaning,accomplishment, andvitality.

   Data were collected in a mixed‐methods research design through two rounds of qualitative semistructured interviews and a survey‐based PERMA‐V profiling instrument. Interview data were analyzed thematically using the PERMA‐V framework as an a priori coding schema and narrative configuration and analysis.

   The narratives demonstrated the interconnectedness between the different facets of well‐being and how they were influenced by various experiences the participants encountered. The participants in this study faced prolonged and extreme adversity. By understanding how the multiple dimensions of well‐being theory manifested in their narratives, we better understood and interpreted how these participants chose to persist.

    

   more » « less
5. Championing Hispanic Student Success following Natural Disasters in Puerto Rico

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--36790  

   López del Puerto, Carla ; Bellido, Carmen ; Suarez, Oscar ; Alfaro, Mónica ; Jimenez, Manuel ( July 2021 , 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference)

   null (Ed.)

   Natural disasters, such as 2017 hurricanes Irma and María, the 2020 earthquakes in Puerto Rico and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, affect students in many aspects including economic, socio-emotional, and academic performance progress. To ensure that students can cope with the aftermath of such searing events, it is necessary to develop initiatives that address these three aspects. Satisfying the financial need is essential, but a long-term solution is mandatory. Hence, providing socio-emotional and academic support and cultivating a sense of purpose are critical to prevent attrition. To secure continued STEM success among students affected by natural disasters, the National Science Foundation has funded several projects at the University of Puerto Rico, a Hispanic Serving Institution. This manuscript presents four NSF-funded projects sharing the common goal of providing support to STEM students to ensure that they succeed despite the said challenges. The first project, titled Nanotechnology Center for Biomedical, Environmental and Sustainability Application, leans heavily on research teams dedicated to design new Nanotechnology platforms to address biomedical and environmental challenges and simultaneously trains a new generation of nanoengineers and nanoscientists throughout the educational echelon starting from public intermediate schools through doctoral programs. The second project, entitled Ecosystem to Expand Capabilities and Opportunities for STEM-Scholars (EECOS), developed an integrated framework that provides support to 62 low-income, talented, STEM students who were severely affected by Hurricane María and 2019-2020 earthquakes (58 undergraduate and 4 graduate). The project provided participants with financial, academic, socio-emotional, and career motivation support needed to complete their programs. The third project, Program for Engineering Access, Retention, and LIATS Success (PEARLS) addresses college access and economic hardships of Low-Income Academically Talented Students (LIATS). It aims at increasing the retention and academic success of talented engineering students coming from economically disadvantaged families. The fourth project, Resilient Infrastructure and Sustainability Education – Undergraduate Program (RISE-UP), has developed an interdisciplinary curriculum to educate cadres of Hispanic students on infrastructure resilience to temper and to overcome the effects of such natural disasters. Three campuses of this institution system collaborate in this interdisciplinary undertaking. Participating students are pursuing undergraduate degrees in engineering, architecture, and surveying who take the entailed courses together and participate in co-curricular activities (both online and in-person through site visits). The new curricular endeavor prepares them to design infrastructure that can withstand the impact of natural events. The expect outcome is to form cohorts of graduates ready to take on real-life infrastructure failures caused by disasters and provide them with an edge in their future professions. The present work provides a range of scalable and portable strategies that universities with underrepresented minorities in STEM programs could deploy to address the immediate and continued needs of students affected by natural disasters to secure academic success. These strategies can contribute to the development of professionals with the skills and experience to deal with severe circumstances such as those effected by natural disasters as well as the preparation to solve infrastructure challenges. 

   more » « less