In this work-in-progress paper, we present a study design for exploring strategies to involve engineering faculty in inclusive teaching practices, which are practices that integrate informal mentoring strategies into everyday communication with students in efforts to improve their interest, capacity, and belongingness in engineering. As part of a larger NSF-funded study on the interactions of engineering professional formation with diversity and inclusion, we will use semi-structured interviews to investigate an electrical and computer engineering (ECE) faculty’s intention to implement inclusive teaching practices, using Fishbein and Ajzen’s reasoned action model to define intention. The interviews will be focused around an inclusive teaching “tip sheet” that was recently distributed to the ECE faculty. These interviews will allow us to characterize factors that influence the development of such an intention within the context of an engineering department, in order to make recommendations for administration.
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An Engineering Faculty and an Intention to Make Change for Diversity and Inclusion: Creating Sustainable Change Efforts
Scholars of engineering education have acknowledged a need for greater connection between research and engineering teaching practice in order to see sustainable change in engineering schools. This study examines the contrast between STEM education research on the positive impact of faculty on diversity and inclusion and some engineering faculty’s lack of actual involvement with these issues. We examine the faculty of an electrical and computer engineering (ECE) department at Purdue University using Fishbein and Ajzen’s reasoned action model for behavior to determine factors in the department that influence faculty’s intention to make change for diversity and inclusion. We conducted interviews with ECE faculty about diversity, inclusion and department culture, and then an inductive thematic analysis organized around the reasoned action model. The major themes revealed that many faculty do not see involvement with diversity and inclusion as a norm in the department, and do not recognize their power to influence these issues. Our conclusions provide recommendations for engineering departments to meaningfully involve their faculty in improving diversity and inclusion.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1636446
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10317482
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 2021 CoNECD
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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