Minoritized and underrepresented students have historically experienced prejudice and discrimination within and outside of their classrooms, negatively impacting their educational outcomes. Research has illustrated that student academic and social success can be improved through instructors creating inclusive classroom environments that facilitate a sense of belonging. The impact of creating more inclusive environments is well-studied, however actionable guidance on how to do this, especially in more technical disciplines such as engineering, is lacking. This study aims to address this gap by developing an inclusive engineering classroom practices menu along with accompanying tools for faculty seeking to improve their classrooms.
The first year of this study, as detailed at ASEE’s Annual Conference in June 2022, saw the development of the inclusive engineering classroom practices menu as well as the pilot of the inclusive learning communities for faculty across three partner institutions. The student and faculty assessment plans were also curated and involved both a student and faculty survey as well as the opportunity for students and faculty to engage in short-format interviews. This presentation will focus on the survey and interview data that has been collected in the second year of the project and the website that has been developed to further engage faculty and other institutions and partners interested in the study. This second year of this study will also see the creation of a decision matrix to aid faculty and instructors to further promote and support the implementation of inclusive practices in engineering classrooms. The continued refinement of the menu and creation of both the website and decision matrix are the next steps in the development of an inclusive classrooms toolkit that can be used across all engineering classrooms and curriculums.
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Classroom Practices that Support Minoritized Engineering Students’ Sense of Belonging
Establishing and sustaining a sense of belonging is a necessary human motivation with particular implications for student learning, including in engineering. Students who experience a sense of belonging are more likely to display intrinsic motivation and establish a stronger sense of identity and persistence. It is important, however, to distinguish different domains of belonging, such as belonging to one’s university, belonging to a major, and belonging in the classroom setting. Our study examines if and how faculty support efforts contribute to diverse students’ sense of belonging in the classroom setting. Specifically, we sought to answer the following research questions: Which faculty support efforts promote a sense of classroom belongingness? Do faculty support efforts differentially promote a sense of classroom belongingness for students based on their demographic characteristics?
Data for this study was collected in the Fall of 2018, across ten institutions, n = 819. We used the Faculty Support items from the STEM Student Perspectives of Support Instrument developed from Lee’s model of co-curricular support to answer our research questions. Demographic categories were created to understand if and how faculty support efforts differentially promote a sense of belonging for minoritized students compared to their counterparts. Multiple regression analysis
was conducted to examine the faculty support efforts that fostered a sense of belonging in the classroom. Interaction effects were included to understand how faculty support efforts affected classroom belongingness for the students in the demographic groups we identified. Minoritized women were less likely to feel a sense of belonging in the classroom when compared to majoritized men. Neither groups of women believed that their instructors wanted them to succeed, thus negatively impacting their classroom belongingness. There were, however, faculty
support efforts that positively contributed to a sense of belonging in the classroom for minoritized women, including instructors’ availability, knowing that they could ask instructors for help in course-related material, and when instructors fostered an atmosphere of mutual respect. Additionally, minoritized women felt a sense of classroom belonging when they could capitalize on their previous experiences to scaffold their learning.
Our findings highlight classroom practices and strategies faculty can use in the classroom to support minoritized women’s sense of belonging. These practices and strategies will be a crucial resource for engineering educators and administrators who seek to improve the field’s retention of minoritized and women students. Whereas efforts have been made to recruit minoritized students into engineering, our study points to a clear and crucial role for faculty to play: they can support
minoritized students by fostering a sense of belonging in engineering classrooms.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1734044
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10294161
- 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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