The Graduate Research Identity Development program (GRID) is an initiative in the College of Engineering at North Carolina A&T State University, sponsored by the National Science Foundation since 2019. The program offers seminar-type lectures supplemented with activities designed to help graduate students develop critical skills for research-based careers. The program is focused on graduate engineering students but is open to graduate students from all programs. Students also choose mentors from within and outside the university with the goal of increasing their sense of belonging to the field and
their identities as research engineers. As part of this program, a pilot study is in progress, aimed at performing a full-scale network analysis of student interactions. A web-based survey was administered to collect information about students in and outside the College of Engineering who participate in the GRID program sessions. The survey was designed to collect information on the relationship networks (or lack thereof) that students are involved in as they matriculate through their graduate program. It assesses things such as how and where the students interact with one another, members of faculty and staff, and
with contacts from intramural and extramural organizations. Several items are also used to assess students’ perceptions of themselves as research engineers. In this paper, we focus on the interactions of students in the classroom. More specifically, we form networks based on the student answers about the classes they have taken in different departments. We then analyze the resultant networks and contrast certain graph theoretic properties to students’ scores on the research engineer identity items. Do students that are in the periphery, or students that have more connections attain higher research engineer identity
scores? Do students that form complete subnetworks (cliques) or core-periphery structures (induced stars) have higher scores than others? This paper presents the findings from this pilot study from the network analysis on this cohort of students. In summary, we find that students with high eigenvector centrality scores and those who form larger cliques possess significantly higher research engineer identity scores.
more »
« less
“Adversary or Ally”: Undergraduate Engineering Students’ Perceptions of Faculty
This research paper examines students’ perceptions of faculty and how it influences their identity trajectory. First-year students enter undergraduate engineering education with rich stories of how they came to choose engineering as a career pathway. Over time, the culture of engineering and network of peers, faculty members, and professionals shape students' stories and identity trajectories. How students “cast” faculty members in their story, often as helpful or hurtful actors, have implications for their identity trajectory, success, and, ultimately, retention in engineering. In this paper, we used two composite narratives constructed from longitudinal narrative interviews with 16 students to illustrate how students cast faculty into a role as either a support or an obstacle, based on their classroom experiences and interactions with them. This paper highlights the interactions that led these students to view faculty as helpful or harmful and explores the effects resulting: influence over student identity trajectory by fostering or hindering relationship building and networking, as well as influencing intellectual growth and personal ability beliefs.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1554057
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10214158
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
The Mechanical Engineering Department at a private, mid-sized university was awarded the National Science Foundation (NSF) Revolutionizing Engineering and Computer Science Departments (RED) grant in July 2017 to supports the development of a program that fosters students’ engineering identities in a culture of doing engineering with industry engineers. With a theme of strong connection to industry, through changes in four essential areas, a shared department vision, faculty, curriculum, and supportive policies, this culture of “engineering with engineers” is being cultivated. Many actions have taken to develop this culture. This paper reports our continued efforts in changes of these four areas: Shared department vision: The department worked together to revise the department mission to reflect the goal of fostering engineering identity. From this shared vision, the department updated the advising procedure and began addressing the challenge of diversity and inclusion faced in engineering. A diversity and inclusion statement was discussed by all faculty and included in all syllabi offered by the department to emphasize the importance of an inclusive culture. Faculty: The pandemic prompted faculty to think differently on how they deliver their courses and interact with students. Many faculty members adapted inverted classroom pedagogy and implemented remote laboratories to continue the emphasis of “doing engineering”. The industry adviser holds weekly virtual office hours to continue to provide industry contacts for students. Although faculty summer immersion this past year was postponed due to pandemic, interactions with industry were continued in various courses. Curriculum: A new mechanical engineering curriculum rolled out in the 2019-20 academic year. Although changes have to be made due to the pandemic but the focus of “engineering with engineers” remained. An example would be the Vertical Integrated Design Projects (VIDP) courses offered in Spring 2020. Utilizing virtual communication tools such as Microsoft Teams, student teams in the VIDP courses could still interact with industry advisors on a regular basis and learned from their experiences. Supportive policies: The department has worked closely with other departments, the college and the university to develop supportive policies. Recently, the college recommended the diversity and inclusion statement developed by the department to all senior design courses offered in the college. The university was aware of the goal of this project in fostering students’ engineering identities, which in term can promote the retention of URMs. The department’s effort is aligned with the new initiative the university launched to build an inclusive environment. More details of the action items in each area of change that the department has taken to build this culture of engineering with engineers will be shared in the full-length paper. This project was funded by the Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) IUSE/PFE: RED grant through NSF.more » « less
-
The Mechanical Engineering Department at a private, mid-sized university was awarded the National Science Foundation (NSF) Revolutionizing Engineering and Computer Science Departments (RED) grant in July 2017 to supports the development of a program that fosters students’ engineering identities in a culture of doing engineering with industry engineers. With a theme of strong connection to industry, through changes in four essential areas, a shared department vision, faculty, curriculum, and supportive policies, this culture of “engineering with engineers” is being cultivated. Many actions have taken to develop this culture. This paper reports our continued efforts in changes of these four areas: Shared department vision: The department worked together to revise the department mission to reflect the goal of fostering engineering identity. From this shared vision, the department updated the advising procedure and began addressing the challenge of diversity and inclusion faced in engineering. A diversity and inclusion statement was discussed by all faculty and included in all syllabi offered by the department to emphasize the importance of an inclusive culture. Faculty: The pandemic prompted faculty to think differently on how they deliver their courses and interact with students. Many faculty members adapted inverted classroom pedagogy and implemented remote laboratories to continue the emphasis of “doing engineering”. The industry adviser holds weekly virtual office hours to continue to provide industry contacts for students. Although faculty summer immersion this past year was postponed due to pandemic, interactions with industry were continued in various courses. Curriculum: A new mechanical engineering curriculum rolled out in the 2019-20 academic year. Although changes have to be made due to the pandemic but the focus of “engineering with engineers” remained. An example would be the Vertical Integrated Design Projects (VIDP) courses offered in Spring 2020. Utilizing virtual communication tools such as Microsoft Teams, student teams in the VIDP courses could still interact with industry advisors on a regular basis and learned from their experiences. Supportive policies: The department has worked closely with other departments, the college and the university to develop supportive policies. Recently, the college recommended the diversity and inclusion statement developed by the department to all senior design courses offered in the college. The university was aware of the goal of this project in fostering students’ engineering identities, which in term can promote the retention of URMs. The department’s effort is aligned with the new initiative the university launched to build an inclusive environment. More details of the action items in each area of change that the department has taken to build this culture of engineering with engineers will be shared in the full-length paper. This project was funded by the Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) IUSE/PFE: RED grant through NSF.more » « less
-
Connection and alienation during the COVID ‐19 pandemic: The narratives of four engineering studentsmore » « less
Abstract Background The COVID‐19 pandemic has highlighted, exacerbated, and caused many challenges within engineering education. At the same time, the pandemic provided opportunities for engineering educators to learn from forced change to promote strategic efforts to improve classroom engagement and connection to better support engineering students.
Purpose We leveraged students' stories to discuss ways university administrators, faculty, and instructors can better support their students during times of global crisis and beyond the current pandemic.
Design/Method We conducted longitudinal narrative interviews with four White women engineering students from different universities in their third and fourth years. The students were selected from a larger research project because their rich and reflective stories resonated with other participant narratives, the research team, and ongoing conversations about educating during and after the COVID‐19 pandemic. Through narrative inquiry, we constructed “restoryed” vignettes and identified patterns within the four students' distinctive stories by drawing on a theoretical framework designed to examine connection and alienation.
Results The findings provided insights into how students were stressed and disconnected from their education in undesirable ways. The findings also provide insight into how those same students received support and maintained a connection to their institution, advisors, and instructors that educators could emulate.
Conclusions Our theoretical framework of connection and alienation proved helpful for understanding the experiences of four engineering students. Additionally, these stories provide practical examples of how faculty and staff can support student connections beyond the pandemic.
-
Electrical and computer engineering technologies have evolved into dynamic, complex systems that profoundly change the world we live in. Designing these systems requires not only technical knowledge and skills but also new ways of thinking and the development of social, professional and ethical responsibility. A large electrical and computer engineering department at a Midwestern public university is transforming to a more agile, less traditional organization to better respond to student, industry and society needs. This is being done through new structures for faculty collaboration and facilitated through departmental change processes. Ironically, an impetus behind this effort was a failed attempt at department-wide curricular reform. This failure led to the recognition of the need for more systemic change, and a project emerged from over two years of efforts. The project uses a cross-functional, collaborative instructional model for course design and professional formation, called X-teams. X-teams are reshaping the core technical ECE curricula in the sophomore and junior years through pedagogical approaches that (a) promote design thinking, systems thinking, professional skills such as leadership, and inclusion; (b) contextualize course concepts; and (c) stimulate creative, socio-technical-minded development of ECE technologies. An X-team is comprised of ECE faculty members including the primary instructor, an engineering education and/or design faculty member, an industry practitioner, context experts, instructional specialists (as needed to support the process of teaching, including effective inquiry and inclusive teaching) and student teaching assistants. X-teams use an iterative design thinking process and reflection to explore pedagogical strategies. X-teams are also serving as change agents for the rest of the department through communities of practice referred to as Y-circles. Y-circles, comprised of X-team members, faculty, staff, and students, engage in a process of discovery and inquiry to bridge the engineering education research-to-practice gap. Research studies are being conducted to answer questions to understand (1) how educators involved in X-teams use design thinking to create new pedagogical solutions; (2) how the middle years affect student professional ECE identity development as design thinkers; (3) how ECE students overcome barriers, make choices, and persist along their educational and career paths; and (4) the effects of department structures, policies, and procedures on faculty attitudes, motivation and actions. This paper will present the efforts that led up to the project, including failures and opportunities. It will summarize the project, describe related work, and present early progress implementing new approaches.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--33966
