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1. Culturally-based Ethical Barriers for American Indian/Alaska Native Students and Professionals in Engineering

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--36888  

   Ingram, Jani ; Castagno, Angelina ; Camplain, Ricky ; Blackhorse, Davona ( September 2022 , 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access)

   Prior research suggests various reasons for the paucity of American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) people in engineering fields, including academic deficiencies, lack of role models, and minimal financial support to pursue a college education. One potential reason that has yet to be explored relates to the cultural and spiritual barriers that could deter AI/AN people from feeling a sense of belonging in engineering fields. These barriers may create obstacles to progressing through engineering career pathways. Our research investigates the range and variation of cultural/spiritual/ethical issues that may be affecting AI/AN people’s success in engineering and other science, technology, and mathematics fields. The work reported here focuses on findings from students and professionals in engineering fields specifically. The study seeks to answer two research questions: (1) What ethical issues do AI/AN students and professionals in engineering fields experience, and how do they navigate these issues?, and (2) Do ethical issues impede AI/AN students from pursuing engineering careers, and if so, how? We distributed an online survey to AI/AN college students (undergraduate and graduate) and professionals in STEM fields, including engineers, in the western United States region. Our results indicate strong connections to AI/AN culture by the participants in the study as well as some cultural, ethical, and/or spiritual barriers that exist for AI/AN individuals in the engineering field. The AI/AN professionals had less concerns with respect to activities that may conflict with AI/AN cultural customs compared to the students, which may be a result of the professionals having gained experiences that allow them to navigate these situations. Overall, our research offers insights for policy and practice within higher education institutions with engineering majors and/or graduate programs and organizations that employ engineering professionals. 

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2. 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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3. A Preliminary Analysis of Identity Development in the Figured Worlds of High-Achieving, Low-Income Engineering Students

   Cogburn, B. ( July 2023 , 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   The ongoing lack of diversity in STEM fields has been described as both: a) a critical issue with a detrimental impact on the United States’ ability to compete with global innovation (Chen, 2013) and b) a systemic issue that excludes certain groups of people from opportunities for economic mobility and job security (Wait & McDonald, 2019). Historically excluded groups, such as women, Black/African Americans, Latin Americans, and economically disadvantaged individuals, continue to be in the minority in STEM (Carnevale et al., 2021). Through the years of research on historically excluded groups, researchers have asserted the importance of developing an engineering identity in determining later success in engineering (Allen & Eisenhart, 2017; Kang et al., 2019; Stipanovic & Woo, 2017). With only 8% of all engineering students entering higher education from low income backgrounds (NCES, 2016; Major et. al, 2018), these students often face significant barriers to their success (Chen, 2013; Hoxby & Avery, 2012), yet there has been very little attention given to them in the research historically. Our study seeks to address the gap related to this population and support the developing understanding of how high achieving, low income students form an engineering identity, as well as the intersectionality and salience of their other socio-cultural identities. Using the theoretical framework of figured worlds (Holland et al., 1998; Waide-James & Schwartz, 2019), we sought to explore what factors shaped the formation of an engineering identity for high achieving, low income college students participating in an engineering scholarship program. Specifically, our research questions were: 1) What factors shape the formation of engineering identity for high achieving, low income students participating in an engineering scholarship program? and 2) How salient are other social identities in the formation of their engineering identity? A constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014) design guided our selection of individual interviews and focus groups as data collection tools, allowing us to tailor our interview questions and shape our programming around the needs of participants. NSF SSTEM-sponsored program activities that could shape the figured world of participants included intentional mentoring, cohort-based seminars, targeted coursework in design courses, and connecting students to internships and co-ops. Emerging themes for our preliminary data analysis reveal the importance of peer relationships, professional mentorship, and cultural wealth, including social capital. Preliminary results from this study have the potential to increase understanding of how to best support the success of high achieving, low income college students in engineering programs, including the implementation of targeted interventions and supports, as well as shed further light on the skills they use to overcome systemic barriers. 

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4. "I'm looking at you, you're a perfectly good person …”: Describing non-apparent disability in engineering

   https://doi.org/https://strategy.asee.org/36059  

   Zongrone, C. ; McCall, C. ; Paretti, M. C. ; Shew, A. ; Simmons, D. R. ; McNair, L. D. ( January 2021 , Collaborative Network for Engineerign and Computing Diversity)

   null (Ed.)

   In recent years, studies in engineering education have begun to intentionally integrate disability into discussions of diversity, inclusion, and equity. To broaden and advocate for the participation of this group in engineering, researchers have identified a variety of factors that have kept people with disabilities at the margins of the field. Such factors include the underrepresentation of disabled individuals within research and industry; systemic and personal barriers, and sociocultural expectations within and beyond engineering education-related contexts. These findings provide a foundational understanding of the external and environmental influences that can shape how students with disabilities experience higher education, develop a sense of belonging, and ultimately form professional identities as engineers. Prior work examining the intersections of disability identity and professional identity is limited, with little to no studies examining the ways in which students conceptualize, define, and interpret disability as a category of identity during their undergraduate engineering experience. This lack of research poses problems for recruitment, retention, and inclusion, particularly as existing studies have shown that the ways in which students perceive and define themselves in relation to their college major is crucial for the development of a professional engineering identity. Further, due to variation in defining ‘disability’ across national agencies (e.g., the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Justice) and disability communities (with different models of disability), the term “disability” is broad and often misunderstood, frequently referring to a group of individuals with a wide range of conditions and experiences. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to gain deeper insights into the ways students define disability and disability identity within their own contexts as they develop professional identities. Specifically, we ask the following research question: How do students describe and conceptualize non-apparent disabilities? To answer this research question, we draw from emergent findings from an on-going grounded theory exploration of professional identity formation of undergraduate civil engineering students with disabilities. In this paper, we focus our discussion on the grounded theory analyses of 4 semi-structured interviews with participants who have disclosed a non-apparent disability. Study participants consist of students currently enrolled in undergraduate civil engineering programs, students who were initially enrolled in undergraduate civil engineering programs and transferred to another major, and students who have recently graduated from a civil engineering program within the past year. Sensitizing concepts emerged as findings from the initial grounded theory analysis to guide and initiate our inquiry: 1) the medical model of disability, 2) the social model of disability, and 3) personal experience. First, medical models of disability position physical, cognitive, and developmental difference as a “sickness” or “condition” that must be “treated”. From this perspective, disability is perceived as an impairment that must be accommodated so that individuals can obtain a dominantly-accepted sense of normality. An example of medical models within the education context include accommodations procedures in which students must obtain an official diagnosis in order to access tools necessary for academic success. Second, social models of disability position disability as a dynamic and fluid identity that consists of a variety of physical, cognitive, or developmental differences. Dissenting from assumptions of normality and the focus on individual bodily conditions (hallmarks of the medical model), the social model focuses on the political and social structures that inherently create or construct disability. An example of a social model within the education context includes the universal design of materials and tools that are accessible to all students within a given course. In these instances, students are not required to request accommodations and may, consequently, bypass medical diagnoses. Lastly, participants referred to their own life experiences as a way to define, describe, and consider disability. Fernando considers his stutter to be a disability because he is often interrupted, spoken over, or silenced when engaging with others. In turn, he is perceived as unintelligent and unfit to be a civil engineer by his peers. In contrast, David, who identifies as autistic, does not consider himself to be disabled. These experiences highlight the complex intersections of medical and social models of disability and their contextual influences as participants navigate their lives. While these sensitizing concepts are not meant to scope the research, they provide a useful lens for initiating research and provides markers on which a deeper, emergent analysis is expanded. Findings from this work will be used to further explore the professional identity formation of undergraduate civil engineering students with disabilities. These findings will provide engineering education researchers and practitioners with insights regarding the ways individuals with disabilities interpret their in- and out-of-classroom experiences and navigate their disability identities. For higher education, broadly, this work aims to reinforce the complex and diverse nature of disability experience and identity, particularly as it relates to accommodations and accessibility within the classroom, and expand the inclusiveness of our programs and institutions. 

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5. What You Need to Succeed: Examining Culture and Capital in Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Education

   Corple, D. ; Zoltowski, C. B. ; Eddington, S. M. ; Brightman, A. O. ; Buzzanell, P. M ( June 2019 , ASEE annual conference & exposition proceedings)

   The low numbers of women and underrepresented minorities in engineering has often been characterized as a ‘pipeline problem,’ wherein few members of these groups choose engineering majors or ‘leak out’ of the engineering education pipeline before graduating [1]. Within this view, the difficulty of diversifying the engineering workforce can be addressed by stocking the pipeline with more diverse applicants. However, the assumption that adding more underrepresented applicants will solve the complex and persistent issues of diversity and inclusion within engineering has been challenged by recent research. Studies of engineering culture highlight how the persistence of women and minorities is linked to norms and assumptions of engineering cultures (e.g., [2], [3]). For example, some engineering cultures have been characterized as masculine, leading women to feel that they must become ‘one of the guys’ to fit in and be successful (e.g., [4]). In the U.S., engineering cultures are also predominantly white, which can make people of color feel unwelcome or isolated [5]. When individuals feel unwelcome in engineering cultures, they are likely to leave. Thus, engineering culture plays an important role in shaping who participates and successfully persists in engineering education and practice. Likewise, disciplinary cultures in engineering education also carry assumptions about what resources students should possess and utilize throughout their professional development. For example, educational cultures may assume students possess certain forms of ‘academic capital,’ such as rigorous training in STEM subjects prior to college. They might also assume students possess ‘navigational capital,’ or the ability to locate and access resources in the university system. However, these cultural assumptions have implications for the diversity and inclusivity of educational environments, as they shape what kinds of students are likely to succeed. For instance, first generation college (FGC) students may not possess the same navigational capital as continuing generation students [5]. Under-represented minority (URM) students often receive less pre-college training in STEM than their white counterparts [6]. However, FGC and URM students possess many forms of capital that often are unrecognized by education systems, for example, linguistic capital, or the ability to speak in multiple languages and styles) [7], [8]. Educational cultures that assume everyone possesses the same kinds of capital (i.e. that of white, American, high SES, and continuing generation students) construct barriers for students from diverse backgrounds. Thus, we propose that examining culture is essential for understanding the underlying assumptions and beliefs that give rise to the challenging issues surrounding the lack of diversity and inclusion in engineering. This case study examines the culture of a biomedical engineering (BME) program at a large Midwestern university and identifies underlying assumptions regarding what sources of cultural and social capital undergraduate students need to be successful. By tracing when and how students draw upon these forms of capital during their professional development, we examine the implications for students from diverse backgrounds, particularly FGC and URM students. 

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