Studies have shown that the graduation rate for underrepresented minorities (URM)
students enrolled in engineering doctorates is significantly lower than their peers. In response,
we created the “Rising Doctoral Institute (RDI)”. This project aims to address issues that URM
students encounter when transitioning into a Ph.D. in engineering and their decision to persist in
the program. To suggest institutional policies that increase the likelihood of URM students to
persist in their doctorate, we identify and analyze some factors in the academic system that
reinforce or hinder the retention of URM students in doctoral education.
Although the factors that influence persistence in URM students have been largely studied as
direct causes of attrition or retention, there is a need for a system perspective that takes into
account the complexity and dynamic interaction that exists between those factors. The academic
system is a complex system that, by nature, is policy resistant. This means that a positive
variation of a factor can incur unintended consequences that could lead to a negative variation in
other factors and ultimately hinder the positive outcomes of that policy.
In this work-in-progress article, we analyze the dynamics of the factors in the academic system
that reinforce or hinder the retention of URM graduate students in engineering. The purpose is to
build some of the causal loops that involve those factors, to improve the understanding of how
the complex system works, and prevent unintended consequences of institutional policies. We
used Causal Loop Diagrams (CLD) to model the feedback loops of the system based on initial
hypotheses of causal relationships between the factors.
We followed a process that started with establishing hypotheses from a previous literature
review, then using a different set of articles we identified the factors related to the hypotheses
and the causal links between them. Next, we did axial coding to group the concepts into smaller
categories and established the causal relations between categories. With these categories and
relations, we created the CLDs for each hypothesis. For the CLDs that have connections missing
to close the loop, we went to find additional literature to close them. Finally, we analyzed the
implications of each CLD.
In this article, we analyze and describe three major CLDs found in literature. The first one was
built around the factor of having a positive relationship with the supervisor. The second centered
on the student’s experience. The third focused on factors that relate to university initiatives
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System Factors Affecting Underrepresented Minorities in Doctoral Programs in Engineering: A Literature Review
Several studies have shown that underrepresented minorities (URM) (African Americans, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, and Latinos) are more likely to drop out of engineering doctorate programs before graduation compared to international and majority students. In addition, transitioning into the doctoral programs without having a good understanding of what it entails can make the PhD experience difficult. To address this issue, a team of researchers from four US universities developed a project called “the Rising Doctoral Institute (RDI)’’. One of the research goals of this project is to better understand how factors in the academic system interact dynamically to influence (i.e., support or hinder) incoming URM students’ access, success, persistence, and retention in engineering doctoral programs. To accomplish this goal, we will use a comprehensive analysis approach known as System Dynamic Model (SDM). This work-In-Progress article represents the starting point to develop this model and its overall goal is to conduct a systematic literature review to identify the factors in the academic system that impact URM students’ experience in doctoral engineering programs. We followed a process suggested by Okoli and Schabram [1] which consists of four major steps. The first step is presenting the purpose of the literature review, protocol, and training. The second step consists of selecting the literature and practical screen. The next step is the quality appraisal and data extraction. Finally, the analysis of findings and writing the review. By identifying the factors and the relation between them, we could help ensure a more diverse and equitable STEM education. Although some external factors can affect students’ access, success, persistence and retention in engineering PhD programs, this study is limited to exploring the factors and interactions within the academic system that can potentially impact the successful experience of underrepresented minorities in PhD programs in engineering such as Advisor-Advisee Relationship, Student’s Experience, Academic Support and Faculty-Students Interaction
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- Award ID(s):
- 2029784
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10311913
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 2021 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE49875.2021.9637208
