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1. Developing Students’ Engineering Leadership Identity: Development and Results of a Pilot Effort with First Year Students

   Tallman, Brett; Sybesma, Tessa A.; Schell, William J.; Hughes, Bryce E.; Kwapisz, Monika B.; Annand, Emma; Ranch, Shannon (June 2020, American Society for Engineering Education)

   In an era of scientific and engineering advancement, we need engineers who have a diversified skillset. More specifically, in order to solve many of the complex problems faced today, industry is calling for engineers who combine their technical expertise with leadership qualities. These qualities can be developed in engineering students’ formative years as undergraduates. However, how leadership qualities are developed in engineering students is still not well understood in engineering education community. As part of a larger project, this work reviews the development of a pilot intervention with freshman engineering students aimed at furthering that understanding. This intervention was informed by a combination of quantitative data analysis, qualitative exploration, and engineering leadership identity theory. Quantitative analysis was based on two national data sets; Qualitative exploration was based on 20 engineering focus groups involving 17 majors from three universities. The goal of this research was to identify an intervention that would impact students in ways that cultivated an engineering leadership identity. To develop this intervention, characteristics of impactful experiences in the development of engineering leadership identity were explored using the data described previously. A transcendental phenomenological approach was used to explore both the content of the experiences (textural) and the context of those experiences (structural). By focusing on the most impactful experiences, a three-pronged intervention was identified. The data indicate that the development of an engineering leadership identity is largely influenced by a bifurcation between technical and interpersonal (or professional) aspects of the profession. Moreover, the data indicates that well-executed group projects and corresponding support activities are instrumental in engineering student leadership development. 

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2. Development of Leadership Self-Efficacy: Comparing Engineers, Other STEM, and Non-STEM Majors

   https://doi.org/10.1109/fie.2018.8658493  

   Hughes, Bryce E.; Schell, William J.; Tallman, Brett (October 2018, 2018 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE))

   The purpose of this work in progress research paper is to examine the differences in leadership self-efficacy among engineering undergraduates and their peers in other fields, and understand how leadership self-concept changes from the first through the fourth year of college. This study conceptualizes engineering formation as a professional identity development process, cultivated through participation in engineering communities of practice. The guiding hypothesis is that experiences that contribute to engineering identity, which focus on the development of technical mastery, conflict with the development of leadership self-concept. This work presents preliminary analysis of the differences between engineering undergraduates and their peers with regard to their leadership experiences during college. Preliminary results reveal a complex picture of the differences between engineering students and their peers in other STEM and non-STEM fields. Engineering students have the highest leadership self-efficacy of all three groups by the end of the fourth year of college, which mirrors differences in self-rated leadership skills at college entry. However, differences in leadership experiences during college vary among these three groups, and not consistently with their leadership self-efficacy. Engineers are least likely to participate in a leadership training during college and to value becoming a leader after college. Among engineering students, students who participate in internships, undergraduate research, and collaborate with peers report higher leadership. Leadership is unrelated to plans to enter engineering as a career. 

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3. Building a Leadership Toolkit: Underrepresented Students' Development of Leadership-Enabling Competencies through a Summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) in Engineering Education

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--43054  

   Volpe, Elizabeth; Simmons, Denise; Rojas, Sara (June 2023, ASEE Conferences)

   The development of inclusive leaders is essential for the success of future engineering and our nation. Equipping students with vital leadership-enabling competencies is necessary to develop a workforce that is prepared to act ethically, and responsibly, and tackle unforeseen challenges in the future. Inclusive leaders, or leaders that are self-aware, empathetic, and prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion in their decision-making, are essential for the forward progress of engineering. A growing body of literature highlights the numerous ways in which students may develop leadership skills outside of the classroom through involvement in out-of-class activities (e.g., internships, clubs, sports, and research experiences). Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs) may provide students with a unique opportunity to develop leadership-enabling competencies that will prepare them for leadership in graduate school, the engineering industry, or academia. The goal of this research was to identify how students’ engagement in an engineering education virtual REU site contributed to their development of essential leadership-enabling competencies. The research question guiding this study was ‘What inclusive leadership-enabling competencies and skills did engineering students learn and develop during an engineering education Summer REU program?’ Qualitative data was collected via weekly open-ended surveys from 9 students (7 women, 2 men) participating in an REU over 9 weeks. Participants in this study consisted of students from underrepresented groups in engineering (e.g., Black, Latinx, women, students from low SES backgrounds, or first-generation students), attending large public research universities across the United States. This study implemented mixed methods to understand what leadership competencies were occurring most frequently and how students were learning and developing these competencies. A combination of text mining for frequency (quantitative analysis) and deductive and inductive coding (qualitative analysis) was used to analyze the data. A codebook was developed based on the leadership-coupled professional competencies that engineering industry leaders identified as essential for engineers entering the workforce. Researchers also allowed for other competencies and leadership-enabling skills to emerge from the data. Findings from this work indicate that students were developing a vast amount of inclusive leadership knowledge and skills from participating in the virtual REU site. This paper highlights, through the use of word clouds and text mining software, the many leadership-enabling competencies that participants developed throughout the summer research experience (e.g., learning, communication, adaptability, self-awareness, balance, networking, etc.). Further, students were able to develop digital literacy, increased communication skills, knowledge of career pathways, intrapersonal growth, and interpersonal relations. This work offers a novel contribution to the literature in understanding how students can develop technical engineering and research skills as well as professional and leadership skills in the same space. Findings from this work help to illuminate the benefits of this virtual REU site focused on engineering education research resulting in terms of developing inclusive leadership skills. Implications for future REU programs, students interested in developing leadership skills, engineering graduate programs, academia, and industry employers are outlined. 

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4. Impact of Peer-Assisted Learning and Leadership Development on Undergraduate Students

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--41968  

   Fogarty, Julie; Altman, Robin; Lundmark, Jennifer (August 2022, ASEE Conferences)

   With college advisory boards and potential employers consistently voicing their desire for engineers and scientists who can communicate well, work effectively in teams, and independently problem-solve, the Colleges of Engineering & Computer Science (ECS) and Natural Sciences and Mathematics (NSM) at Sacramento State University, a large, public, primarily undergraduate institution, have deployed two programs to explicitly address these skills for undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students. The goals of the NSF-funded Achieving STEM Persistence through Peer-Assisted Learning and Leadership Development (ASPIRE) project are to increase retention and decrease time to graduation for STEM students, as well as increase retention of women and underrepresented minorities (URM) in the STEM workforce by implementing evidence-based practices to promote student success during two critical transitions: 1) from lower-division to upper-division coursework in engineering; and 2) from upper-division coursework to an entry-level STEM career. ASPIRE aims to achieve these goals by: 1) adapting and implementing the NSM Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) program in gateway engineering courses; and 2) developing the Hornet Leadership Program which includes scaffolded opportunities for students to explore their leadership capacity and develop leadership skills. The main research questions for this study include: (1) Will the ECS PAL model and Hornet Leadership Program result in increased persistence and workforce readiness in STEM majors at a large, diverse university? (2) What attitude changes will this project have on students and faculty and the relationships between them? The first question is addressed through pre- and post-implementation student surveys and student course/GPA data. The second question is addressed through faculty surveys, faculty focus groups/interviews, and pre- and post-data from a faculty professional development workshop. In general, preliminary results from this study indicate the new ECS PAL program successfully attracts URM students and thus has the potential to support their persistence and STEM workforce readiness. Additionally, undergraduate students across both Colleges who participated in the inaugural Hornet Leadership Program gained non-technical skills and experiences directly linked to competitiveness and preparation for workforce entry and graduate programs. Finally, faculty surveys and the faculty professional development workshop indicate that faculty value student leadership development, but identify barriers to accomplishing this work. 

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5. Exploring the Relationship Between Students’ Engineering Identity and Leadership Self-Efficacy

   Schell, William J.; Hughes, Bryce E.; Tallman, Brett; Annand, Emma; Beigel, Romy; Kwapisz, Monika B. (June 2019, American Society for Engineering Education)

   In order to lead the social process required to solve society’s grandest challenges and ensure that the capabilities of an expanded engineering workforce are successfully harnessed, new engineers must be more than just technical experts, they must also be technical leaders. Thankfully, greater numbers of engineering educators are recognizing this need and are consequently establishing engineering leadership certificates, minors, and even full degree programs through centers at universities throughout the country. However, for these programs to reach their full potential, engineering educators must be successful in integrating leadership into the very identity of engineers. This study seeks to better understand the relationship between engineering identity and leadership, so tools can be developed that enable engineering educators to more effectively integrate leadership into an engineering identity. This paper explores this relationship using a national sample of 918 engineering students who participated in the 2013 College Senior Survey (CSS). The CSS is administered by the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) at UCLA to college students at the end of their fourth year of college; data from the CSS are then matched to students’ prior responses on the 2009 Freshman Survey (TFS), which was administered when they first started college, to create a longitudinal sample. Using a leadership construct developed by HERI as the outcome variable, this work utilizes Hierarchical Linear Modelling (HLM) to examine the impact of engineering identity and a host of other factors shown to be important in college student development on leadership. HLM is especially appropriate since individual student cases are grouped by schools, and predictor variables include both student-level and institution-level variables. The leadership construct, referred to as leadership self-efficacy in this work, includes self-rated growth in leadership ability, self-rating of leadership ability relative to one’s peers, participation in a leadership role and/or leadership training, and perceived effectiveness leading an organization. The primary independent variable of interest was a factor measuring engineering identity comprised of items available on both the TFS and CSS instruments. Including this measure of engineering identity from two different time periods in the model provides the relationship between engineering identity in the fourth year and leadership self-efficacy, controlling for engineering identity in the first year as a pretest. Statistically significant results were found across each of the areas tested, including the fourth-year engineering identity factor as well as several collegiate experiences, pre-college experiences, major, and institutional variables. Taken together, these results present a nuanced picture of what matters to predicting leadership outcomes for undergraduate engineering students. For example, while engineering identity is a significant positive predictor of the leadership construct, computer engineers score lower than mechanical engineers on leadership, while interacting with faculty appears to enhance leadership self-efficacy. 

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