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1. 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. 

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2. 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.

    

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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. 

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4. Investigating the Formation of Engineers and the Future Professoriate: Linking Writing Approaches and Attitudes to Doctoral Socialization, Persistence, and Attrition

   Berdanier, Catherine G. ( June 2019 , 126th ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   This poster reports on results to date of an ongoing NSF RFE Grant, entitled “Investigating the Formation of Engineers and the Future Professoriate: Linking Writing Approaches and Attitudes to Doctoral Socialization, Persistence, and Attrition.” The objective of this study is to investigate the linkage between engineering writing and disciplinary discourse with other mechanisms of engineering graduate socialization, such as identity formation, socialization, persistence, and desire to pursue academic careers. This study is designed as an embedded exploratory mixed methods study of current graduate engineering students and recent non-completers that seek to answer the following research questions: 1. How do graduate students at various stages in their PhD programs in engineering perceive the role of academic writing as it relates to academic socialization and success in future academic careers? 2. How are these perceptions different or similar for graduate students who are considering leaving or have left their PhD programs before graduating? 3. Can existing surveys of writing concepts, attitudes, and self-efficacies predict students’ risk for attrition? 

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5. Current Trends in Attrition Considerations of Graduate Engineering Students in the United States

   Bahnson, M. ; Berdanier, C.G.P ( January 2023 , International journal of engineering education)

   Available attrition statistics for graduate engineering students do not adequately inform current attrition research because they focus on degree completion rather than attrition or early departure; aggregate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students; and reflect out-of-date data. While recently some work has begun to explore doctoral attrition qualitatively, the purpose of this study is to describe current trends in graduate engineering students’ consideration of departure from their programs of study by capturing current numerical data specific to engineering about students’ recent attrition considerations. This is important because, since the last studies were conducted, higher education systems have experienced a global pandemic, economic downturn, and sociopolitical turmoil in the United States. Graduate students (n = 2204) in the U.S. completed a survey. The sample includes master’s (n = 535) and doctorate (n = 1646) degree-seeking students from 27 engineering disciplines and includes U.S. domestic and international populations. A majority of students considered leaving their degree program in the month before they took the survey: nearly 70% of Ph.D. and 39% of master’s students, while 31% of Ph.D. and 16% of master’s students seriously considered leaving their program without their degree. Descriptive statistics provide early departure considerations by engineering discipline, gender identity, race/ethnicity, nationality, and year in program by degree sought. Comparisons between groups are presented for gender, nationality, and career stage. It is essential to have an updated and discipline-specific benchmark of attrition considerations for continued engineering education research purposes, for mentorship, and for administrative purposes. Early departure from graduate school remains a threat to innovation and broadening participation in engineering and the professoriate. 

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