Title: Examining Black Diaspora Participation in Engineering using Narrative Inquiry
This paper examines the use of quantitative research agendas on systems modeling to study anticipatory cognition and cultural competency. This combination results in an integrative science approach to explore the intersectionality of metacognition, academic self-efficacy, stereotype threat, scholarly reasoning and identity among minority black diaspora graduate students. Extant literature focuses on social support models, but the novelty of the approach in this paper examines metacognition in action within a culturally-aware context. Data were collected as semi-structured narrative inquiry to capture metacognition during learning using narrative identity construction as a tool.
There was a total of five students in the study including three females and two male participants in their first year of the graduate studies. However, the analysis focused on three of the participants who provided data consistently for eleven months -- two males and one female. The participants provided data including responses to Likert scale questions, and weekly video narratives in response to three sets of questions each week in an n-of-1 big data approach. This approach has the empirical benefit of allowing more inclusive and personalized analyses to draw conclusions. By observing the requirements of an approved IRB protocol, the analysis based on the transcripts of the video recordings, and the examination of change within each individual over time was confidential and conducted with de-identified data. Video recordings are coded and analyzed using HyperRESEARCH TM version 3.7.5.
The result calibrates students’ comprehension, integration, and application of impactful, data-driven research skills. The metacognitive development portion examines the influence and dynamics of anticipatory cognition, stereotype threat, identity, and academic self-efficacy as the students’ progress through the process of quantitative skills mastery. This paper reports on the highlights of the distilled data on: (i) anticipatory cognition -- construct to describe use of prospective memory to simulate future associations and expected outcomes; (ii) academic self-efficacy -- captures the perceived level of confidence in the participants to engage successfully in specific cognitive acts associated with academic mastery; (iii) stereotype threat -- captures the anxiety associated with the salience of status as a member of a group that is stereotyped as underperforming in a specific area; (iv) identity or categorization of the self as a scholar and engineer. Other themes emerging include perseverance or determination, isolation, extant knowledge, future anticipation, and problem solution focus. more »« less
This study investigates career intentions and students’ engineering attitudes in BME, with a focus on gender differences. Data from n = 716 undergraduate biomedical engineering students at a large public research institution in the United States were analyzed using hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis. Results revealed five clusters of intended post-graduation plans: Engineering Job and Graduate School, Any Job, Non-Engineering Job and Graduate School, Any Option, and Any Graduate School. Women were evenly distributed across clusters; there was no evidence of gendered career preferences. The main findings in regard to engineering attitudes reveal significant differences by cluster in interest, attainment value, utility value, and professional identity, but not in academic self-efficacy. Yet, within clusters the only gender differences were women’s lower engineering academic self-efficacy, interest and professional identity compared to men. Implications and areas of future research are discussed.
Splendido, S; O’Connor, J; Thole, K_A; Berdanier, C_G_P(
, 2024 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition)
The purpose of this research full paper is to examine the development of undergraduate students’ research identity during a summer undergraduate research experience. Identity development through socialization experiences is crucial for students to explore future career paths, especially in careers that require research-focused graduate degrees. However, literature is limited on how effective socialization occurs for research and future research-related careers. This paper follows 10 undergraduate engineering and physics students participating in an engineering-focused Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program at an R1 institution to explore this gap in knowledge. As part of a longitudinal multi-method study, participants completed a pre- and post-experience survey, and participated in three interviews over the course of the summer. Survey data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and a Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Interviews were analyzed through the lens of academic self-concept theory for common themes of socialization and identity development in research through the course of the program. Findings indicate that undergraduate students’ research self-concepts are heavily influenced by research experiences and comparisons to their peers. The students’ increase in research self-concept as well as their experiences and interactions within the program allowed them to see research careers as attainable and increased their interest in pursuing graduate degrees after the program. Survey data showed a statistical increase in research self-efficacy and research identity at the end of the program, reinforcing the idea that students’ experiences in the REU helped them grow as researchers and engineers. This research increases our understanding of students’ research identity development and provides potential ways to implement research self-concept and identity development to similar undergraduate research experiences.
Stevens, Samantha M.; Ruberton, Peter M.; Smyth, Joshua M.; Cohen, Geoffrey L.; Purdie Greenaway, Valerie; Cook, Jonathan E.(
, PLOS ONE)
Benetreau, Yann
(Ed.)
To advance understanding of doctoral student experiences and the high attrition rates among Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) doctoral students, we developed and examined the psychological profiles of different types of doctoral students. We used latent class analysis on self-reported psychological data relevant to psychological threat from 1,081 incoming doctoral students across three universities and found that the best-fitting model delineated four threat classes: Lowest Threat , Nonchalant , Engaged/Worried , and Highest Threat . These classes were associated with characteristics measured at the beginning of students’ first semester of graduate school that may influence attrition risk, including differences in academic preparation (e.g., amount of research experience), self-evaluations and perceived fit (e.g., sense of belonging), attitudes towards graduate school and academia (e.g., strength of motivation), and interpersonal relations (e.g., perceived social support). Lowest Threat students tended to report the most positive characteristics and Highest Threat students the most negative characteristics, whereas the results for Nonchalant and Engaged/Worried students were more mixed. Ultimately, we suggest that Engaged/Worried and Highest Threat students are at relatively high risk of attrition. Moreover, the demographic distributions of profiles differed, with members of groups more likely to face social identity threat (e.g., women) being overrepresented in a higher threat profile (i.e., Engaged/Worried students) and underrepresented in lower threat profiles (i.e., Lowest Threat and Nonchalant students). We conclude that doctoral students meaningfully vary in their psychological threat at the beginning of graduate study and suggest that these differences may portend divergent outcomes.
The importance of diversifying the national STEM workforce is well-established in the literature (Marrongelle, 2018). This need extends to graduate education in the STEM fields, leading N.C. A&T to invest considerably in graduate education and wraparound support initiatives that help graduate students build science identity and competencies for careers both within and beyond academia. The NSF-funded Bridges to the Doctorate project will integrate culturally reflective mentoring and professional development specifically designed for Black, Latinx, and Native American Ph.D. students. This holistic, graduate student development model includes academic and professional skill-building for STEM careers alongside targeted support for pursuing fellowship opportunities. This paper discusses the planned mentoring approach for the aforementioned program and previous approaches to mentoring graduate students used at N.C. A&T. The BD Fellows program will support formal and informal mentoring relationships, as mentoring contributes towards retention in STEM graduate programs (Ragins, 2007). BD Fellows will participate in monthly one-hour seminars on how to identify, establish, and maintain informal mentoring relationships (Schwartz et al., 2018; Parnes et al., 2020), while STEM faculty will attend seminars on leveraging their social networks as vital sources of mentorship for the BD Fellows. Using a multi-pronged collaborative approach, this model integrates the evidence-based domains of self-efficacy (Laurencelle & Scanlan, 2018; Lent et al., 1994; Lent et al., 2008), science/research identity (Lent et al., 2015; Zimmerman, 2000), and social cognitive career theory (Lent et al., 2005; Lent and Brown, 2006) to recruit, enroll, and graduate LSAMP Fellows with STEM doctoral degrees. Guided by the theories, the following questions will be addressed: (1) To what extent is culturally reflective mentoring identified as a critical driver of B2D Fellows’ success? (2) To what extent are the program’s training components fostering increases in B2D Fellow’s self-efficacy, competency, and science identity? (3) What is the strength of the correlation between participation in the program training components, mentoring activities, and persistence in graduate school? (4) To what extent does the perceived importance of self-efficacy, competency, and science identity differ by race/ethnicity and gender? These data will be analyzed using both formative and summative assessments of program outcomes. Quantitative data will include pre-, post-, and exit surveys. Qualitative data will assess the impact of mentoring and program support. This study will be guided by established protocols that have been approved by the N.C. A&T IRB. It is anticipated that our BD Fellows program will significantly impact the retention and graduation rates of underrepresented minority STEM graduate students in our doctoral programs, thus producing a diverse workforce of STEM professionals. Materials from the program recruiting cycle, mentoring workshops, and the structured fellowship application process will be disseminated freely to other LSAMP and minority-serving institutions across the country. Strategies and outcomes of this project will be published in peer-reviewed journals and shared in conference proceedings.
Shittu, E., Dashiell-Shoffner, J., and Kim, H.N. Examining Black Diaspora Participation in Engineering using Narrative Inquiry. Retrieved from https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10200040. ASEE CoNECD Conference 2021. .
Shittu, E., Dashiell-Shoffner, J., & Kim, H.N. Examining Black Diaspora Participation in Engineering using Narrative Inquiry. ASEE CoNECD Conference 2021., (). Retrieved from https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10200040.
Shittu, E., Dashiell-Shoffner, J., and Kim, H.N.
"Examining Black Diaspora Participation in Engineering using Narrative Inquiry". ASEE CoNECD Conference 2021. (). Country unknown/Code not available. https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10200040.
@article{osti_10200040,
place = {Country unknown/Code not available},
title = {Examining Black Diaspora Participation in Engineering using Narrative Inquiry},
url = {https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10200040},
abstractNote = {This paper examines the use of quantitative research agendas on systems modeling to study anticipatory cognition and cultural competency. This combination results in an integrative science approach to explore the intersectionality of metacognition, academic self-efficacy, stereotype threat, scholarly reasoning and identity among minority black diaspora graduate students. Extant literature focuses on social support models, but the novelty of the approach in this paper examines metacognition in action within a culturally-aware context. Data were collected as semi-structured narrative inquiry to capture metacognition during learning using narrative identity construction as a tool. There was a total of five students in the study including three females and two male participants in their first year of the graduate studies. However, the analysis focused on three of the participants who provided data consistently for eleven months -- two males and one female. The participants provided data including responses to Likert scale questions, and weekly video narratives in response to three sets of questions each week in an n-of-1 big data approach. This approach has the empirical benefit of allowing more inclusive and personalized analyses to draw conclusions. By observing the requirements of an approved IRB protocol, the analysis based on the transcripts of the video recordings, and the examination of change within each individual over time was confidential and conducted with de-identified data. Video recordings are coded and analyzed using HyperRESEARCH TM version 3.7.5. The result calibrates students’ comprehension, integration, and application of impactful, data-driven research skills. The metacognitive development portion examines the influence and dynamics of anticipatory cognition, stereotype threat, identity, and academic self-efficacy as the students’ progress through the process of quantitative skills mastery. This paper reports on the highlights of the distilled data on: (i) anticipatory cognition -- construct to describe use of prospective memory to simulate future associations and expected outcomes; (ii) academic self-efficacy -- captures the perceived level of confidence in the participants to engage successfully in specific cognitive acts associated with academic mastery; (iii) stereotype threat -- captures the anxiety associated with the salience of status as a member of a group that is stereotyped as underperforming in a specific area; (iv) identity or categorization of the self as a scholar and engineer. Other themes emerging include perseverance or determination, isolation, extant knowledge, future anticipation, and problem solution focus.},
journal = {ASEE CoNECD Conference 2021.},
author = {Shittu, E. and Dashiell-Shoffner, J. and Kim, H.N.},
editor = {null}
}
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