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1. Lived Experiences of African American Engineering Students at a PWI Through the Lens of Navigational Capital

   Damas, S. ; Benson, L. ( February 2022 , 2022 CoNECD (Collaborative Network for Engineering & Computing Diversity))

   There are significant disparities between the conferring of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) bachelor’s degrees to minoritized groups and the number of STEM faculty that represent minoritized groups at four-year predominantly White institutions (PWIs). Studies show that as of 2019, African American faculty at PWIs have increased by only 2.3% in the last 20 years. This study explores the ways in which this imbalance affects minoritized students in engineering majors. Our research objective is to describe the ways in which African American students navigate their way to success in an engineering program at a PWI where the minoritized faculty representation is less than 10%. In this study, we define success as completion of an undergraduate degree and matriculation into a Ph.D. program. Research shows that African American students struggle with feeling like the “outsider within” in graduate programs and that the engineering culture can permeate from undergraduate to graduate programs. We address our research objective by conducting interviews using navigational capital as our theoretical framework, which can be defined as resilience, academic invulnerability, and skills. These three concepts come together to denote the journey of an individual as they achieve success in an environment not created with them in mind. Navigational capital has been applied in education contexts to study minoritized groups, and specifically in engineering education to study the persistence of students of color. Research on navigational capital often focuses on how participants acquire resources from others. There is a limited focus on the experience of the student as the individual agent exercising their own navigational capital. Drawing from and adapting the framework of navigational capital, this study provides rich descriptions of the lived experiences of African American students in an engineering program at a PWI as they navigated their way to academic success in a system that was not designed with them in mind. This pilot study took place at a research-intensive, land grant PWI in the southeastern United States. We recruited two students who identify as African American and are in the first year of their Ph.D. program in an engineering major. Our interview protocol was adapted from a related study about student motivation, identity, and sense of belonging in engineering. After transcribing interviews with these participants, we began our qualitative analysis with a priori coding, drawing from the framework of navigational capital, to identify the experiences, connections, involvement, and resources the participants tapped into as they maneuvered their way to success in an undergraduate engineering program at a PWI. To identify other aspects of the participants’ experiences that were not reflected in that framework, we also used open coding. The results showed that the participants tapped into their navigational capital when they used experiences, connections, involvement, and resources to be resilient, academically invulnerable, and skillful. They learned from experiences (theirs or others’), capitalized on their connections, positioned themselves through involvement, and used their resources to achieve success in their engineering program. The participants identified their experiences, connections, and involvement. For example, one participant who came from a blended family (African American and White) drew from the experiences she had with her blended family. Her experiences helped her to understand the cultures of Black and White people. She was able to turn that into a skill to connect with others at her PWI. The point at which she took her familial experiences to use as a skill to maneuver her way to success at a PWI was an example of her navigational capital. Another participant capitalized on his connections to develop academic invulnerability. He was able to build his connections by making meaningful relationships with his classmates. He knew the importance of having reliable people to be there for him when he encountered a topic he did not understand. He cultivated an environment through relationships with classmates that set him up to achieve academic invulnerability in his classes. The participants spoke least about how they used their resources. The few mentions of resources were not distinct enough to make any substantial connection to the factors that denote navigational capital. The participants spoke explicitly about the PWI culture in their engineering department. From open coding, we identified the theme that participants did not expect to have role models in their major that looked like them and went into their undergraduate experience with the understanding that they will be the distinct minority in their classes. They did not make notable mention of how a lack of minority faculty affected their success. Upon acceptance, they took on the challenge of being a racial minority in exchange for a well-recognized degree they felt would have more value compared to engineering programs at other universities. They identified ways they maneuvered around their expectation that they would not have representative role models through their use of navigational capital. Integrating knowledge from the framework of navigational capital and its existing applications in engineering and education allows us the opportunity to learn from African American students that have succeeded in engineering programs with low minority faculty representation. The future directions of this work are to outline strategies that could enhance the path of minoritized engineering students towards success and to lay a foundation for understanding the use of navigational capital by minoritized students in engineering at PWIs. Students at PWIs can benefit from understanding their own navigational capital to help them identify ways to successfully navigate educational institutions. Students’ awareness of their capacity to maintain high levels of achievement, their connections to networks that facilitate navigation, and their ability to draw from experiences to enhance resilience provide them with the agency to unleash the invisible factors of their potential to be innovators in their collegiate and work environments. 

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2. Same soup, different bowl: Understanding the mentoring attitudes of STEM doctoral faculty at HBCUs

   Merriweather, Lisa ; Douglas, Niesha ; Howell, Cathy ; Sanczyk, Anna ( August 2022 , ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)

   ackground: Historically Black College and Universities (HBCUs) have for decades played a pivotal role in producing Black scientists. Research found that HBCUs, despite being under funded and resourced, were responsible for over 10% of Black scientists with doctorates. Even though most earn their doctorates at Historically White Institutions (HWIS), understanding the experience of Black STEM doctoral students at HBCUs is of paramount importance to impacting opportunity for success for underrepresented population groups. HBCUs are recognized for approaches to learning and learning environments that are more relational, encouraging peer to peer and student to faculty relationships, particularly in the form of same-race and same sex mentorships, resulting in less negative racialized gendered experiences and less competitive atmospheres. In spite of what appears to be accepted truths, such as HBCUs offering more culturally affirming experiences, some researchers suggests that little empirical research exists on the quality of support structures available for graduate students at HBCUS in STEM academic fields, particularly mentoring. Increased understanding would provide essential framing necessary for developing more effective mentors at HBCUs, especially given that there are limited numbers of Black faculty in STEM, even at HBCUs. Theoretical Framework: Anti-racism and critical capital theory are employed as theoretical frameworks. Both are well suited for questioning taken-for-granted assumptions about the lived experiences of racialized others and for deconstructing systemic issues influencing common faculty practices. These frameworks highlight the contextual experiences of STEM doctoral learning. Research Design: The researchers were interested in understanding how STEM doctoral faculty at HBCUs perceive their role as mentors. An NSF AGEP sponsored social science research project explored the dispositions, skills, and knowledge of eight STEM faculty at a HBCU. Attitudes towards culturally liberative mentoring were explored through a qualitative case study. The participating faculty were involved in an institutional change program and were interviewed for an average of 60 minutes. Constant comparative data analysis method was used. Additionally, STEM faculty from participating departments completed two mentoring competency and attitude inventories. This case was drawn from a larger multiple embedded case study. Research Findings: The research findings indicate that STEM doctoral faculty mentors at HBCUs express attitudes about mentoring that are not all that different from their PWIS counterparts. They have a tendency to hold deficit views of domestic Black students and have minimal awareness of how culture inhibits or facilitates a positive learning experience for Black students. Further the culture of science tended to blind them from the culture of people. Research Implications: In order to enhance the learning experiences of Black STEM doctoral students at HBCUs, the Black student experience at HBCUs must be deromanticized. Understanding the impact of anti-Black racism even within an environment historically and predominantly Black is imperative. Recognizing the ways in which anti-Black attitudes are insidiously present in faculty attitudes and practices and in environments perceived as friendly and supportive for Black students highlights opportunities for STEM faculty development that can move toward a more culturally liberative framework. 

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3. "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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4. Understanding the ‘us all’ in Engineering 4 Us All through the Experiences of High School Teachers

   Berhane, B. ; Dalal, M. ; Klein-Gardner, S. ; Carberry, A. ; Reid, K. ; Beauchamp, C. ; Kouo, J. ; Pines, D. ( January 2021 , 3rd annual CoNECD – The Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity Conference)

   null (Ed.)

   As our nation’s need for engineering professionals grows, a sharp rise in P-12 engineering education programs and related research has taken place (Brophy, Klein, Portsmore, & Rogers, 2008; Purzer, Strobel, & Cardella, 2014). The associated research has focused primarily on students’ perceptions and motivations, teachers’ beliefs and knowledge, and curricula and program success. The existing research has expanded our understanding of new K-12 engineering curriculum development and teacher professional development efforts, but empirical data remain scarce on how racial and ethnic diversity of student population influences teaching methods, course content, and overall teachers’ experiences. In particular, Hynes et al. (2017) note in their systematic review of P-12 research that little attention has been paid to teachers’ experiences with respect to racially and ethnically diverse engineering classrooms. The growing attention and resources being committed to diversity and inclusion issues (Lichtenstein, Chen, Smith, & Maldonado, 2014; McKenna, Dalal, Anderson, & Ta, 2018; NRC, 2009) underscore the importance of understanding teachers’ experiences with complementary research-based recommendations for how to implement engineering curricula in racially diverse schools to engage all students. Our work examines the experiences of three high school teachers as they teach an introductory engineering course in geographically and distinctly different racially diverse schools across the nation. The study is situated in the context of a new high school level engineering education initiative called Engineering for Us All (E4USA). The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded initiative was launched in 2018 as a partnership among five universities across the nation to ‘demystify’ engineering for high school students and teachers. The program aims to create an all-inclusive high school level engineering course(s), a professional development platform, and a learning community to support student pathways to higher education institutions. An introductory engineering course was developed and professional development was provided to nine high school teachers to instruct and assess engineering learning during the first year of the project. This study investigates participating teachers’ implementation of the course in high schools across the nation to understand the extent to which their experiences vary as a function of student demographic (race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status) and resource level of the school itself. Analysis of these experiences was undertaken using a collective case-study approach (Creswell, 2013) involving in-depth analysis of a limited number of cases “to focus on fewer "subjects," but more "variables" within each subject” (Campbell & Ahrens, 1998, p. 541). This study will document distinct experiences of high school teachers as they teach the E4USA curriculum. Participants were purposively sampled for the cases in order to gather an information-rich data set (Creswell, 2013). The study focuses on three of the nine teachers participating in the first cohort to implement the E4USA curriculum. Teachers were purposefully selected because of the demographic makeup of their students. The participating teachers teach in Arizona, Maryland and Tennessee with predominantly Hispanic, African-American, and Caucasian student bodies, respectively. To better understand similarities and differences among teaching experiences of these teachers, a rich data set is collected consisting of: 1) semi-structured interviews with teachers at multiple stages during the academic year, 2) reflective journal entries shared by the teachers, and 3) multiple observations of classrooms. The interview data will be analyzed with an inductive approach outlined by Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña (2014). All teachers’ interview transcripts will be coded together to identify common themes across participants. Participants’ reflections will be analyzed similarly, seeking to characterize their experiences. Observation notes will be used to triangulate the findings. Descriptions for each case will be written emphasizing the aspects that relate to the identified themes. Finally, we will look for commonalities and differences across cases. The results section will describe the cases at the individual participant level followed by a cross-case analysis. This study takes into consideration how high school teachers’ experiences could be an important tool to gain insight into engineering education problems at the P-12 level. Each case will provide insights into how student body diversity impacts teachers’ pedagogy and experiences. The cases illustrate “multiple truths” (Arghode, 2012) with regard to high school level engineering teaching and embody diversity from the perspective of high school teachers. We will highlight themes across cases in the context of frameworks that represent teacher experience conceptualizing race, ethnicity, and diversity of students. We will also present salient features from each case that connect to potential recommendations for advancing P-12 engineering education efforts. These findings will impact how diversity support is practiced at the high school level and will demonstrate specific novel curricular and pedagogical approaches in engineering education to advance P-12 mentoring efforts. 

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5. Investigating Factors that Predict Academic Success in Engineering and Computer Science

   Adesope, O. ; Sunday, O.J. ; Ewumi, E.R. ; Minichiello, A. ; Asghar, M. ; Claiborn, C.S. ( July 2021 , 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference)

   Over the years, researchers have found that student engagement facilitates desired academic success outcomes for college undergraduate students. Much research on student engagement has focused on academic tasks and classroom context. High impact engagement practices (HIEP) have been shown to be effective for undergraduate student academic success. However, less is known about the effects of HIEP specifically on engineering and computer science (E/CS) student outcomes. Given the high attrition rates for E/CS students, student involvement in HIEP could be effective in improving student outcomes for E/CS students, including those from various underrepresented groups. More generally, student participation in specific HIEP activities has been shown to shape their everyday experiences in school, both academically and socially. Hence, the primary goal of this study is to examine the factors that predict academic success in E/CS using multiple regression analysis. Specifically, this study seeks to understand the effects of high impact engagement practices (HIEP), coursework enjoyability, confidence at completing a degree on academic success of the underrepresented and nontraditional E/CS students. We used exploratory factor analyses to derive “academic success” variable from five items that sought to measure how students persevere to attain academic goals. A secondary goal of the present study is to address the gap in research literature concerning how participation in HIEP affects student persistence and success in E/CS degree programs. Our research team developed and administered an online survey to investigate and identify factors that affect participation in HIEP among underrepresented and nontraditional E/CS students. Respondents (N = 531) were students enrolled in two land grant universities in the Western U.S. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the proportion of the variation in the dependent variable (academic success) explained by the independent variables (i.e., high impact engagement practice (HIEP), coursework enjoyability, and confidence at completing a degree). We hypothesized that (1) high impact engagement practices will predict academic success; (2) coursework enjoyability will predict academic success; and (3) confidence at completing a degree will predict academic success. Results showed that the multiple regression model statistically predicted academic success , F(3, 270) = 33.064, p = .001, adjusted R2 = .27. This results indicate that there is a linear relationship in the population and the multiple regression model is a good fit for the data. Further, findings show that confidence at completing a degree is significantly predictive of academic success. In addition, coursework enjoyability is a strong predictor of academic success. Specifically, the result shows that an increase in high impact engagement activity is associated with an increase in students’ academic success. In sum, these findings suggest that student participation in High Impact Engagement Practices might improve academic success and course retention. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. 

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