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1. 'I wish I could do more': A qualitative meta-analysis of early career engineers' perceptions of agency in their workplaces

   Lutz, Benjamin ; Canney, Nathan ; Brunhaver, Samantha ( June 2019 , Proceedings of the American Society of Engineering Education Annual Conference)

   Engineering students graduate from their programs with a broad range of skills that are set by professional societies, industry recommendations, and other stakeholders in student success. But when those engineers enter their jobs, how are those skills utilized and nurtured by the organizations they enter? The purpose of this paper is to present a cross-sectional, secondary qualitative analysis of research exploring the experiences of recent engineering graduates as they move from student to professional. Of particular interest were the ways engineers describe their autonomy or sense of choice, the way engineers recognize and make sense of their organizations’ values, and the alignment (or lack thereof) between personal values and those of their organization. To do so, qualitative data sets from three different studies of engineers’ experiences at various stages in their professional trajectories were combined and thematically analyzed, producing four major themes that speak to the ways engineers perceive their sense of agency in their work experiences. Looking across data sets, themes emerged regarding empowerment, organizational fit, and workplace expectations. While these themes were common across the studies included in the analysis, the way the themes manifested across data sets raises interesting questions about the formation of engineers and the socialization experiences that contribute to that formation. As research on engineering practice continues to develop, it is important that researchers consider where engineers are within their career trajectory and how that influences their perceptions about the work they do and the agency they have within organizations. 

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2. How Do Student Perceptions of Engineers and Engineering as a Career Relate to Their Self-Efficacy, Career Expectations, and Grittiness?

   Morris, Melissa Lynn ; Dygert, Joseph ; Hensel, Robin A. ( June 2020 , 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access)

   This complete research paper examines the connection between student beliefs about engineering as a profession, as well as the perceptions of their family and friends, to their reported self-efficacy, career expectations, and grittiness. The student responses examined were obtained from non-calculus ready engineering students at a large land grant institution in the Mid-Atlantic region. The students participated in a well-established program focused on cohort formation, mentorship, professional skill development, and fostering a sense of inclusion and belonging in engineering. The program, consisting of a one-week pre-fall bridge experience and two common courses, was founded in 2012 and has been operating with National Science Foundation (NSF) S-STEM funding since 2016. Students who received S-STEM funded scholarships are required to participate in focus groups, one-on-one interviews, and complete LAESE, MSLQ, and GRIT questionnaires each semester. The researchers applied qualitative coding methods to evaluate student responses from focus groups and one-one-one interviews which were conducted from 2017 to 2019. Questions examined in this paper include: 1) How would you describe an engineer? 2) Please describe what you think an engineer does on a daily basis. 3) What do you think your friends/family think of engineering? 4) What skills or characteristics do you think good engineers have? 5) What types of careers do you believe are filled by degree holding engineers? Student responses on the aforementioned questions were related to the self-efficacy, career expectation, and grit values obtained from the LAESE, MSLQ, and GRIT instruments. The nature of this longitudinal study allows the evolution of student responses to also be examined as they matriculate through their education. Additional analysis was performed to identify themes and numerical trends associated with student populations such as, underrepresented minorities, females, and first-generation college students. Results of this research are presented in an effort to further highlight the importance of exposure to STEM fields during an individual’s K-12 education, and express how student perceptions, self-efficacy, GRIT, and career expectations evolve over their undergraduate education. 

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3. ABET & Engineering Accreditation - History, Theory, Practice: Initial Findings from a National Study on the Governance of Engineering Education

   Akera, A. ( January 2019 , ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   Who and by what means do we ensure that engineering education evolves to meet the ever changing needs of our society? This and other papers presented by our research team at this conference offer our initial set of findings from an NSF sponsored collaborative study on engineering education reform. Organized around the notion of higher education governance and the practice of educational reform, our open-ended study is based on conducting semi-structured interviews at over three dozen universities and engineering professional societies and organizations, along with a handful of scholars engaged in engineering education research. Organized as a multi-site, multi-scale study, our goal is to document differences in perspectives and interest the exist across organizational levels and institutions, and to describe the coordination that occurs (or fails to occur) in engineering education given the distributed structure of the engineering profession. This paper offers for all engineering educators and administrators a qualitative and retrospective analysis of ABET EC 2000 and its implementation. The paper opens with a historical background on the Engineers Council for Professional Development (ECPD) and engineering accreditation; the rise of quantitative standards during the 1950s as a result of the push to implement an engineering science curriculum appropriate to the Cold War era; EC 2000 and its call for greater emphasis on professional skill sets amidst concerns about US manufacturing productivity and national competitiveness; the development of outcomes assessment and its implementation; and the successive negotiations about assessment practice and the training of both of program evaluators and assessment coordinators for the degree programs undergoing evaluation. It was these negotiations and the evolving practice of assessment that resulted in the latest set of changes in ABET engineering accreditation criteria (“1-7” versus “a-k”). To provide an insight into the origins of EC 2000, the “Gang of Six,” consisting of a group of individuals loyal to ABET who used the pressure exerted by external organizations, along with a shared rhetoric of national competitiveness to forge a common vision organized around the expanded emphasis on professional skill sets. It was also significant that the Gang of Six was aware of the fact that the regional accreditation agencies were already contemplating a shift towards outcomes assessment; several also had a background in industrial engineering. However, this resulted in an assessment protocol for EC 2000 that remained ambiguous about whether the stated learning outcomes (Criterion 3) was something faculty had to demonstrate for all of their students, or whether EC 2000’s main emphasis was continuous improvement. When it proved difficult to demonstrate learning outcomes on the part of all students, ABET itself began to place greater emphasis on total quality management and continuous process improvement (TQM/CPI). This gave institutions an opening to begin using increasingly limited and proximate measures for the “a-k” student outcomes as evidence of effort and improvement. In what social scientific terms would be described as “tactical” resistance to perceived oppressive structures, this enabled ABET coordinators and the faculty in charge of degree programs, many of whom had their own internal improvement processes, to begin referring to the a-k criteria as “difficult to achieve” and “ambiguous,” which they sometimes were. Inconsistencies in evaluation outcomes enabled those most discontented with the a-k student outcomes to use ABET’s own organizational processes to drive the latest revisions to EAC accreditation criteria, although the organization’s own process for member and stakeholder input ultimately restored much of the professional skill sets found in the original EC 2000 criteria. Other refinements were also made to the standard, including a new emphasis on diversity. This said, many within our interview population believe that EC 2000 had already achieved much of the changes it set out to achieve, especially with regards to broader professional skills such as communication, teamwork, and design. Regular faculty review of curricula is now also a more routine part of the engineering education landscape. While programs vary in their engagement with ABET, there are many who are skeptical about whether the new criteria will produce further improvements to their programs, with many arguing that their own internal processes are now the primary drivers for change. 

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4. Board 330: Iron Range Engineering Academic Scholarships for Co-Op Based Engineering Education

   Spence, Catherine M. Siverling ( June 2023 , Review directory American Society for Engineering Education)

   This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Over its six year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 120 unique full-time students who are pursuing Bachelor of Science degrees in engineering. First semester junior, primarily transfer, students at Iron Range Engineering will receive scholarships for one semester. The Iron Range Engineering (IRE) STEM Scholars Program provides a financially sustainable pathway for students across the nation to graduate with an engineering degree and up to two years of industry experience. Students typically complete their first two years of engineering coursework at community colleges across the country. Students then join IRE and spend one transitional semester gaining training and experience to equip them with the technical, design, and professional skills needed to succeed in the engineering workforce. During the last two years of their education, IRE students work in industry, earning an engineering intern salary, while being supported in their technical and professional development by professors, learning facilitators, and their own peers. The IRE STEM Scholars project will provide access to a financially responsible engineering degree for low-income students by financially supporting them during the transitional semester, which has two financial challenges: university tuition costs are higher than their previous community college costs, and the semester occurs before they are able to earn an engineering co-op income. In addition, the project will provide personalized mentorship throughout students’ pathway to graduation, such as weekly conversations with a mentor. By providing these supports, the IRE STEM Scholars project aims to prepare students to be competitive applicants for the engineering workforce with career development and engineering co-op experience. Because community colleges draw relatively representative proportions of students from a variety of backgrounds, this project has the potential to learn how transfer pathways and co-op education can support financially sustainable pathways to engineering degrees for a more diverse group of students and contribute to the development of a diverse, competitive engineering workforce. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. As part of the scope of this project, a concurrent mixed-methods research study will be done on engineering students’ thriving, specifically their identity, belonging, motivation, and overall wellbeing (or mental and physical health). Student outcomes have previously been measured primarily through academic markers such as graduation rates and GPA. In addition to these outcomes, this project explores ways to better support overall student thriving. This study will address the following research questions: How do undergraduate students’ engineering identity and belongingness develop over time in a co-op-based engineering program? How do undergraduate students’ motivation and identity connect to overall wellbeing in a co-op-based engineering program? In the first year of the IRE STEM Scholars Project, initial interview data describe scholars’ sense of belonging in engineering, prior to their first co-op experiences and survey data describe IRE students’ experiences in co-op and overall sense of belonging. Future work will utilize these values to identify ways to better support the IRE STEM scholars’ identity development as they move into their first co-op experiences. This project is funded by NSF’s Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income students. 

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5. Responsibility and Accountability: Faculty Leaders, Ethics Frameworks, and Disciplinary Enculturation

   Pinkert, L. ; Beever, J. ; Kuebler, S. ; Taylor, L.E. ; Vazquez, E. ; Milanes, V. ( June 2023 , 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   What responsibility do faculty leaders have to understand the ethics frameworks of their faculty colleagues? To what extent do leaders have capacity to enact that responsibility, given constraints on curricular space, expertise, basic communication skills, and the political climate? The landscape of disciplinary ethics frameworks, or the value content and structured experiences that shape professional development and disciplinary enculturation, reaches wide across the curriculum and deep into the discipline [1][2][3]. This landscape might include frameworks ranging from accrediting bodies and institutional compliance structures to state and national laws and departmental cultures. Coupled to the diversity of specializations within a single discipline, this landscape is richly complex. Yet, faculty leaders play important roles in shaping departmental and programmatic cultures, which are at least partially informed by the disciplinary value landscape. The objective of this paper is to build on previous work [4] to explore this problem of faculty leader responsibility by contrasting faculty leaders’ perspectives on disciplinary values with the values evidenced by their professional organizations. To evidence this contrast, we compare data from interviews with faculty leaders in departments of biology and computer science at a large metropolitan high research intensive HSI-serving university against data scraped from the websites of professional organizations those leaders reference as ethics frameworks. We analyze both sets of data using content analytics methods to examine qualitative and quantitative differences between them. This comparison is part of a larger institutional study looking at this problem across a wide diversity of disciplines [5]. We find an anticipated disparity between identification of the disciplinary frameworks and their content, opening space for discussion about the impact of national ethics frameworks at the local disciplinary level. But we also find an unanticipated diversity of types of ethics frameworks identified by faculty leaders, demonstrating the complexity of just how value frameworks inform disciplinary enculturation through leadership and training. Based on our findings, we articulate the relationship between responsibility and accountability [6] in the process of values-driven disciplinary enculturation. This work is relevant to ethics in that if ethics frameworks and the values they encode play a role in disciplinary enculturation, and there is a disconnect between faculty leaders perceptions of ethics frameworks and their disciplines explicit communications of their values, then the processes and practices of disciplinary enculturation could be more tightly connected to disciplinary values – resulting in more richly ethical professionals. *note: a version of this abstract is also submitted concurrently as a presentation to the Association of Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE), which does not publish abstracts or proceedings papers. [1] Tuana, Nancy. 2013. “Embedding Philosophers in the Practices of Science: Bringing Humanities to the Sciences.” Synthese 190(11): 1955-1973. [2] West, C. and Chur-Hansen, A. (2004). Ethical Enculturation: The Informal and Hidden Ethics Curricula at an Australian Medical School. Focus on Health Professional Education: a Multi-Disciplinary Journal 6(1): 85-99. [3] Nieusma, D. and Cieminski, M. (2018). Ethics Education as Enculturation: Student Learning of Personal, Social, and Professional Responsibility. 2018 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition. Paper 23665. [4] Pinkert, L.A., Taylor, L., Beever, J., Kuebler, S.M., Klonoff, E. (2022). Disciplinary Leaders Perceptions of Ethics: An Interview-Based Study of Ethics Frameworks. 2022 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition. https://peer.asee.org/41614. [5] National Science Foundation, “Award Abstract # 2024296 Institutional Transformation: Intersections of Moral Foundations and Ethics Frameworks in STEM Enculturation.” https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2024296, 2020. 

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