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1. Using Prompted Reflective Journaling to Understand Nontraditional Students in Engineering

   Brozina, C; Johri, A. (August 2022, 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   This research paper is a study of the support needs of nontraditional students in engineering (NTSE). Nontraditional students in engineering are one segment of the student body that has traditionally not been a part of the conversation in engineering education– those students who do not go through a typical four-year college degree largely at a residential campus. It is only by better understanding the range of issues that NTSE face that we will be able to design interventions and support systems that can assist them. Recent work in engineering education particularly argues that co-curricular support is a critical factor in student success as it effects curricular progress but there has been no work looking specifically at co-curricular support for NTSE and their retention and persistence. The population of NTSE is increasing across campuses as more students take on jobs to support their education and as those in the workforce return to complete their education. It is imperative that higher educational systems understand how to serve the needs of these students better. Although there are a range of ways in which nontraditional students (NTS) are defined, the NCES has proposed a comprehensive definition that includes enrollment criteria, financial and family status, and high school graduation status. Overall, the seven characteristics specifically associated with NTS are: (1) Delayed enrollment by a year or more after high school, (2) attended part-time, (3) having dependents, (4) being a single parent, (5) working full time while enrolled, (6) being financially independent from parents, and (7) did not receive a standard high school diploma. We ground our research in the Model of Co-Curricular Support (MCCS) which suggests it is the role of the institution to provide the necessary support for integration. If students are aware and have access to resources, which lead to their success, then they will integrate into the university environment at higher rates than those students who are not aware and have access to those resources. This research study focuses on answering one research question: How do NTSE engage with co-curricular supports as they progress through their degree programs? To answer this question, we recruited 11 NTSE with a range of nontraditional characteristics to complete prompted reflective journaling assignments five times throughout the Fall 2021 semester. Qualitative results showcase the nuanced lives of NTSE as they pursue their engineering degrees. In particular, results indicate students interact with faculty, classmates, and friends/peers the most, and only interact with advising when required. Students rarely reach out to larger student support for help or are involved with campus or other events happening. Classmate and friend/peer interactions are the most positive, while interactions with faculty had the largest negative outcomes. 

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2. If I had more time: A transactional perspective on supporting nontraditional students in engineering

   https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE58773.2023.10343307  

   Brozina, Cory; Chew, Alanis; Johri, Aditya (October 2023, IEEE)

   In order to diversify and increase the engineering workforce, there is a documented need to better support nontraditional students (NTS) pursuing engineering degrees. Yet, most models of student support are currently based on the traditional model of engineering education that takes place in a place-based, residential, research driven institutions. In this paper, we analyze semi-structured interviews to understand the needs of NTS in engineering and outline ways in which they can be better supported towards their degree. We use theoretical work on Moore's Theory of Transactional Distance which focuses on dialogue, structure, and learner autonomy. We found that NTS in our sample were dedicated to completing their degrees for practical, and specific reasons and were looking for a work-life-education balance. Participants almost never used any resources other than their instructors and cared most about flexibility of scheduling their classes around their other commitments. This contrasts with current work within the literature that argues for increasing engagement and offering a range of services to engineering students. Our research discusses findings from interviews of five nontraditional students in engineering. The semi-structured interviews were transcribed then open-coding and thematic analysis were performed by the research team. Results showcase major themes from the interviews such as Financial Security, Home Commitments, Motivation, Personal Well-Being, Academic Support, Social Support, and Other Concerns. We discuss these findings in the context of determining ways to support nontraditional students on campuses where these students are most prevalent and often overlooked within the research community. 

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3. Undergraduate Socialization in Engineering: The Role of Institutional Tactics and Proactive Behaviors

   Henderson, T. S. (January 2018, ASEE annual conference & exposition proceedings)

   Higher education literature is replete with evidence that socioeconomic variables and background characteristics inform a myriad of factors related to students’ college life. These include the institutions students choose to attend, their experiences after matriculation, differences in success rates, and even post-graduation outcomes. This is particularly true in engineering, where gaps in academic performance, persistence, and degree attainment still endure despite the litany of federal, institutional, and unit-level resources designed to address socioeconomic disparities. In contrast to much of the literature that takes a deficit-based approach, in this work we presuppose that it is not simply differences in socioeconomic variables and background characteristics that separates highly engaged, successful students in engineering from their less engaged, unsuccessful counterparts. Rather, we suggest that an underlying set of socialization processes by which students become familiar with collegiate engineering education makes students more or less likely to engage in activities that are associated with success. We posit that students’ experiences with these socialization processes – institutional socialization tactics and proactive behaviors – may better explain patterns of participation and outcomes in engineering that go beyond the consideration of access to academic and social resources. Drawing on Weidman’s Undergraduate Socialization framework, we developed a conceptual model for understanding the socialization processes that inform engineering students’ participation in co-curricular activities (specifically professional engineering societies and student design teams). This model is guided by three hypotheses. First, we hypothesize that socioeconomic, academic, and demographic background characteristics combine to uniquely inform students’ experiences with two socialization processes – institutional tactics and proactive behaviors. This, in turn, informs their participation in co-curricular activities, such as professional engineering societies and student design teams. Finally, students who participate in co-curricular engineering activities have different academic and social outcomes than their counterparts who do not participate in co-curricular engineering activities. We also developed a survey instrument based on this model to understand how various socioeconomic variables and background characteristics inform students’ socialization processes and, as a result, their outcomes in engineering. Our goal is to understand the factors that shape students’ socialization into engineering, as well as their development into engineers. Ultimately, our goal is to narrow gaps in participation and success in engineering by addressing negative socialization experiences. 

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4. Leveraging Lived Experiences of Nontraditional Engineering Students: Preliminary Data and Analysis

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--47739  

   Ng, Ean H; Natarajan, Ganapathy; Scheel, Ingrid; Atagbuzia, Chukwudiebube; Mast, Nathan (June 2024, ASEE Conferences)

   The population of nontraditional engineering students (NTES) is increasing across campuses as more students are returning from the workforce to complete their education and students who need to take on part-time or full-time jobs to support their education. Nontraditional students (NTS) are defined as students who satisfy at least one of the seven criteria provided by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) or are older than 24 years of age in an undergraduate program. Research into NTES generally focused on their demographics, the challenges they faced and educational outcomes, and specific methods of teaching NTES. Existing studies on NTES focus on NTES’ deficiencies and methods to improve the outcomes of NTES in engineering programs. None of the existing studies in NTES are asset-based that focus on their strengths such as their lived experiences or leveraging their strengths to increase engaged student learning for all students. The objective of this study is to identify the characteristics of NTES lived experience that can be incorporated into engineering classrooms to increase engagement for all students. Interviews with NTES were conducted to identify the characteristics of NTES past experience that were of interest to traditional engineering students in their engineering courses and classrooms. Interviews were transcribed and coded for analysis. 

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5. Empowering Disabled Engineers through Accessible Co-Curricular Activities

   Murdock, M; Allen, K; Short, E (July 2025, Proceedings of the 2025 Conference on Research on Equitable and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT 2025))

   The benefits of co-curricular activities are well-documented, with improvements in academic and professional development. Unfortunately, while U.S. laws mandate equal access to co- and extracurricular activities for disabled students, participation of disabled students in co-curricular activities is lower than the participation of their non-disabled peers, and this critical part of engineering education is often inaccessible to disabled students. In this paper we review the documented benefits of co-curriculars for all students and make the case for increasing the research focus on co-curricular inclusion specifically for disabled students, who are minimally represented in the overall body of work on co-curricular activities. 

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