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Objective/Research Question: There is a growing demand for skilled workers in engineering and technology fields. However, the number of engineering technology degrees awarded is much less compared to engineering, and a high percentage of students in engineering technology do not persist beyond the first year. To meet the demands for skilled workers, it is important to understand the experiences of engineering technology students to identify factors that contribute to their matriculation and persistence. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the research that exists on the academic and personal experiences of engineering technology and welding technology students. The research questions guiding this study are: (a) what are the academic and personal experiences of engineering technology and welding technology students at 2- and 4-year institutions? and (b) what are students’ experiences with persisting in engineering technology? Methods: Using our research questions and predetermined inclusion criteria, we performed a literature review of relevant articles retrieved from Scopus and ERIC ProQuest databases. Results: We identify three areas of opportunities for future research examination: (a) experiences of students of marginalized populations in engineering technology, (b) how to leverage career and technical education and 2-year engineering technology programs to support matriculation, and (c) ways to address the negative stigma associated with engineering technology programs. Conclusions/Contributions: To meet the demands of the nation’s economy and future workforce, it is important to further examine the experiences of engineering technology students.
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Expectations in engineering programs: Between social construction and internalized experience (2020, June), Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content https://peer.asee.org/34627
Prior research established that expectations play a significant role in students educational experiences. Academic and non-academic expectations can contribute to students’ stress and anxiety, and have been shown to impact achievement and retention. This study uses ethnographic methods to investigate how expectations are socially constructed in engineering programs and how students’ come to internalize these expectations. Data was collected in ten focus groups with a total of 38 participants at two universities with different institutional characteristics. The qualitative analysis drew on constant comparative methods and proceeded from topic coding of sources of expectations to interpretive coding of mechanisms in which students internalized experiences. More specifically, sources of expectations were identified as academics, superiors, peers, extra-curricular, and from outside the major. The rich account of students' lived-experiences shows a complex interplay of expectations from multiple sources. The mechanisms of compounding, conflicting, and triangulating expectations show that the interactions of expectations can amplify their emotional impacts on students. The results indicate that students judge their own performance or belonging in engineering relative to the systemic functioning of expectations. For educators, this insight has profound implications on how we communicate performance standards without inadvertently reinforcing social performance expectations that can contribute to problematic cultural features of engineering learning environments.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1752897
- PAR ID:
- 10173404
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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