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1. Early Career Engineers’ Views of Ethics and Social Responsibility: Study Overview

   Claussen, S.; Jesiek, B. K.; Zoltowski, C. B.; Howland, S. (July 2021, Proceedings of the 2021 American Society of Engineering Education Virtual Annual Conference)

   null (Ed.)

   Amidst growing concerns about a lack of attention to ethics in engineering education and professional practice, a variety of formal course-based interventions and informal or extracurricular programs have been created to improve the social and ethical commitments of engineering graduates. To supplement the formal and informal ethics education received as undergraduate students, engineering professionals often also participate in workplace training and professional development activities on ethics, compliance, and related topics. Despite this preparation, there is growing evidence to suggest that technical professionals are often challenged to navigate ethical situations and dilemmas. Some prior research has focused on assessing the impacts of a variety of learning experiences on students’ understandings of ethics and social responsibility, including the PIs’ prior NSF-funded CCE STEM study which followed engineering students through the four years of their undergraduate studies using both quantitative and qualitative research methods. This prior project explored how the students’ views on these topics changed across demographic groups, over time, between institutions, and due to specific interventions. Yet, there has been little longitudinal research on how these views and perceptions change (or do not change) among engineers during the school-to-work transition. Furthermore, there has been little exploration of how these views are influenced by the professional contexts in which these engineers work, including cultures and norms prevalent in different technical fields, organizations, and industry sectors. This NSF-supported Ethical and Responsible Research (ER2) study responds to these gaps in the literature by asking: RQ1) How do perceptions of ethics and social responsibility change in the transition from undergraduate engineering degree programs to the workplace (or graduate studies), and how are these perceptions shaped or influenced?, and RQ2) How do perceptions of ethics and social responsibility vary depending on a given individual’s engineering discipline/background and current professional setting? This paper gives an overview of the research project, describing in particular the longitudinal, mixed-methods study design which will involve collecting and analyzing data from a large sample of early career engineers. More specifically, we will present the proposed study contexts, timeline, target subject populations, and procedures for quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis. We will also describe how this study leverages our prior project, thereby allowing unique longitudinal comparisons that span participants’ years as an engineering undergraduate student to their time as an early-career professional. Through this project, we aim to better understand how early career engineers’ perceptions of social and ethical responsibility are shaped by their prior experiences and current professional contexts. This paper will likely be of particular interest to scholars who teach or research engineering ethics, social responsibility, and professional practice. 

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2. Exploring Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Engineering Undergraduate Experiences through Autoethnography

   Haverkamp, A.; Butler, A.; Pelzl, N. S.; Bothwell, M. K.; Montfort, D.; Driskill, Q. (April 2019, 2019 CoNECD - The Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity)

   Undergraduate programs in engineering are demanding, time consuming, and inherently social endeavors for young adults. Strong social support networks and communities which foster success are frequently found to increase student retention and perseverance through their engineering degree programs. Students with marginalized identities in higher education are met with additional workloads – managing their social identity, negotiating stereotypes, and finding belonging. Existing research shows that a student’s experience in in higher education is particularly shaped by gender interactions. This has been shown to be particularly true in engineering, whose gender demographics and professional culture is described as hegemonically masculine. Research on gender in engineering has typically framed gender within a rigid, essentialized cisgender binary. Current literature is lacking detail on the processes used by gender diverse students in the transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) community as they navigate the gendered engineering field. We wish to highlight the experiences that undergraduate engineering students have had in relation to their social support and perceptions of gender as it relates to engineering culture within their undergraduate programs. Two students participated in autoethnography as a method of data collection to meet this objective. Collaborative autoethnographic methods position the students as coauthors and coresearchers to ensure the validity of analysis alongside the project’s primary investigators. Using a resiliency framework and critical autoethnographic analysis, the primary focus is on the ways these students have formed support systems and their perception of the social landscape in engineering. Through exploring how students persevere through their programs we may uncover points of intervention to strengthen these support systems. 

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3. Evaluation of STEM Engagement Activities on the Attitudes and Perceptions of Mechanical Engineering S-STEM Scholars

   https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4051715  

   Zhu, Liang; Sun, Shuyan; Timmie Topoleski, L. D.; Eggleton, Charles; Ma, Ronghui; Madan, Deepa (December 2021, Journal of Biomechanical Engineering)

   null (Ed.)

   Abstract Since 2009, the mechanical engineering (ME) scholarship-science technology engineering and mathematics (S-STEM) Program at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) has provided financial support and program activities to ME undergraduate students aiming at improving their retention and graduation rates. The objective of this study is to identify program activities that were most effective to help students for improvements. Current ME S-STEM scholars were asked to complete a survey that measures their scientific efficacy, engineering identity, expectations, integration, and sense of belonging, as well as how program activities impact their attitudes and perceptions. Analyses of 36 collected surveys showed that scholars reported high levels of engineering identity, expectations, and sense of belonging. However, further improvements were needed to help students in achieving scientific efficacy and academic integration into the program. Results demonstrated that pro-active mentoring was the most effective method contributing to positive attitudes and perceptions. The implemented S-STEM research-related activities and internship were viewed favorably by the scholars in helping them establish their scientific efficacy and engineering identity, and understand their expectations and goals. Community building activities were considered helpful for them to integrate into campus life and improve their sense of belonging to the campus and program. Scholars identified mentoring, research related activities, internships, and social interaction with faculty and their peers as important factors for their retention and graduation. Although the sample size was small in the study, we believe that the cost-effective activities identified could be adopted by other institutions to further improve students' retention and graduation rates in engineering programs. 

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4. NSF S-STEM Scholarship Program Initiative via Recruitment, Innovation, and Transformation: SPIRIT Program Year-One Results

   https://doi.org/10.18260/p.25808  

   Ferguson, Chip; Yanik, Paul; Yan, Yanjun; Kaul, Sudhir (June 2016, American Society for Engineering Education)

   The NSF S-STEM funded SPIRIT: Scholarship Program Initiative via Recruitment, Innovation, and Transformation program at Western Carolina University creates a new approach to the recruitment, retention, education, and placement of academically talented and financially needy engineering and engineering technology students. Twenty-seven new and continuing students were recruited into interdisciplinary cohorts that are being nurtured and developed in a community characterized by extensive peer and faculty mentoring, vertically integrated Project Based Learning (PBL), and undergraduate research experiences. The SPIRIT Scholar program attracted a diverse group of Engineering and Engineering Technology students, thus increasing the percentage of female and minority student participation as compared to the host department program demographics. Over the last academic year, fifty-four undergraduate research projects/activities were conducted by the twenty-seven scholars under the direction of twelve faculty fellows. Additionally, peer-to-peer mentorship and student leadership were developed through the program’s vertically integrated PBL model, which incorporated four courses and seven small-group design projects. Academic and professional support for the student scholars were administered through collaborations with several offices at the host institution, including an industry-engaged product development center. The program participants reported strong benefits from engaging in the program activities during the first year. Specifically, this paper presents results from the program activities, including: cohort recruitment and demographics; support services; undergraduate research; vertically integrated PBL activities; and the external review of the program. Similar programs may benefit from the findings and the external review report, which contained several accolades as well as suggestions for potential continuous improvement. 

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5. Work in Progress: NSF S-STEM Program: Recruitment, Engagement, and Retention: Energizing and Supporting Students with Diverse Backgrounds in Mechanical Engineering

   Jamie R. Gurganus, Liang Zhu (June 2019, ASEE annual conference & exposition)

   Recognizing current and future needs for a diverse skilled workforce in mechanical engineering and the rising cost of higher education that acts as a barrier for many talented students with interests in engineering, the NSF funded S-STEM project at a state university focuses resources and research on financial support coupled with curricular and co-curricular activities designed to facilitate student degree attainment, career development, and employability in STEM-related jobs. This program has provided enhanced educational opportunities to more than 90 economically disadvantaged and academically talented undergraduate students in the Mechanical Engineering Department in the past eight years. It is expected that approximately 45 academically talented and financially needy students, including students transferring from community colleges to four-year engineering programs will receive scholarship support in the next 5 years, with an average amount of $6,000 per year for up to four years to earn degrees in mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). Through scholarships and supplemental support services, this program promotes full-time enrollment and will elevate the scholastic achievement of the S-STEM scholars, with a special emphasis on females and/or underrepresented minorities. It will provide a holistic and novel educational experience combining science, engineering, technology and medicine to improve student retention and future career prospects. The project builds on an established partnership between the state university and community colleges to improve and investigate the transfer experience of community college students to four-year programs, student retention at the university, and job placement and pathways to graduate school and employment. A mixed methods quantitative and qualitative research approach will examine the implementation and outcomes of proactive recruitment; selected high impact practices, such as orientation, one-to-one faculty mentoring, peer mentoring, and community building; participation by students in research-focused activities, such as research seminars and undergraduate experiences; and participation by students in career and professional development activities. In this paper, preliminary data will be presented discussing the attitudes and perceptions of the s-stem scholars and comparing students in scholarly programs and non-programmed situations. This research was supported by an NSF S-STEM grant (DUE-1742170). 

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