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1. Surviving, thriving, departing, and the hidden competencies of engineering graduate school

   https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20498  

   Zerbe, Ellen ; Sallai, Gabriella ; Berdanier, Catherine G. P. ( December 2022 , Journal of Engineering Education)

   While researchers in graduate engineering education are beginning to study facets of student experiences as they relate to attrition and persistence, theoretical applications of thriving theory have not been applied to graduate education contexts. Literature addresses students who persist and those who depart, inherently making assumptions that students who persist are doing well.

   The purpose of this article was to understand graduate student well‐being within students that persist and depart from the engineering PhD through an adapted model of the Spreitzer et al.'s Socially Embedded Model for Thriving at Work.

   Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 64 current and former engineering PhD students, representing various stages of the PhD, status of persistence, questioning departure, or having left a PhD program. Interview transcripts were analyzed using an abductive analysis approach.

   An expanded model for thriving in graduate school was developed. While this study contextualizes the core elements of thriving theory (context features, agentic behaviors, and produced resources), we propose that the mechanisms for thriving in graduate school lie in interactions across these themes in processes we call Adapting, Internalizing, and Cultivating. We also reveal the presence of hidden competencies (from the point of view of the graduate student participants) that facilitate these transitions.

   Thriving in graduate school is an interconnected process which has not been explored in the context of engineering. This study shows how even students who persist in their degree may only be surviving, rather than thriving.

    

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2. Persistence at what cost? How graduate engineering students consider the costs of persistence within attrition considerations

   https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20528  

   Sallai, Gabriella M. ; Bahnson, Matthew ; Shanachilubwa, Kanembe ; Berdanier, Catherine G. P. ( May 2023 , Journal of Engineering Education)

   While previous work in higher education documents the impact of high tuition costs of attending graduate school as a key motivator in attrition decisions, in engineering, most graduate students are fully funded on research fellowships, indicating there are different issues causing individuals to consider departure. There has been little work characterizing nonfinancial costs for students in engineering graduate programs and the impact these costs may have on persistence or attrition.

   Framed through the lens of cost as a component of the expectancy–value theory framework and the graduate attrition decisions (GrAD) model conceptual framework specific to engineering attrition, the purpose of this article is to characterize the costs engineering graduate students associate with attending graduate school and document how costs affect students' decisions to persist or depart.

   Data were collected through semistructured interviews with 42 engineering graduate students from R1 engineering doctoral programs across the United States who have considered, are currently considering, or have chosen to depart from their engineering PhD programs with a master's degree.

   In addition to time and money, which are costs previously captured in research, participants identified costs to life balance, costs to well‐being, and identify‐informed opportunity costs framed in terms of what “could have been” if they had chosen to not go to graduate school. As these costs relate to persistence, students primarily identified their expended effort and already‐incurred costs as the primary motivator for persistence, rather than any expected benefits of a graduate degree.

   The findings of this work expand the cost component of the GrAD model conceptual framework, providing a deeper understanding of the costs that graduate students relate to their persistence in engineering graduate programs. It evidences that motivation to persist may not be due to particularly strong goals but may result from costs already incurred. Through this research, the scholarly community, students, advisors, and university policymakers can better understand the needs of engineering graduate students as they navigate graduate study.

    

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3. Reasons and root causes: Conventional characterizations of doctoral engineering attrition obscure underlying structural issues

   https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20619  

   Sallai, Gabriella_M ; Berdanier, Catherine_G_P ( October 2024 , Journal of Engineering Education)

   Although most engineering graduate students are funded and usually complete their degrees faster than other disciplines, attrition remains a problem in engineering. Existing research has explored the psychological and sociological factors contributing to attrition but not the structural factors impacting attrition.

   Using systems theory, this study seeks to understand nuance in how underlying structural causes affect engineering graduate students' attrition experiences in ways that may differ from their official reasons for departure.

   Data were collected through semi‐structured interviews with seven departing or already departed engineering doctoral students from R1 graduate programs across the United States. Using thematic analysis, root cause analyses were conducted to understand participants' attrition experiences to explore how structures influence causes of departure.

   The ways participants discuss root causes of their departure indicate differences in formal reasons for departure and underlying causes of departure. We highlight the role of informal and formal policy as root causes of a different attrition rationale often passed off as interpersonal issues. When interpreted as evidence of structural issues, the causes of departure show ways in which action–inaction, policy–“null” policy serve as structural features governing student attrition decision processes. We also highlight a form of benign neglect toward struggling graduate students.

   This study reveals important nuances underlying face‐value reasons of attrition indicating foundational structural issues contributing to engineering graduate student attrition. Coaching faculty in team management and encouraging close revision of departmental policies could help mitigate students' negative graduate experiences and decrease unnecessary attrition.

    

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4. Professorial intentions of engineering PhDs from historically excluded groups: The influence of graduate school experiences

   https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20607  

   Fleming, Gabriella_Coloyan ; Cobb, Sydni_Alexa ; Borrego, Maura ( July 2024 , Journal of Engineering Education)

   In addition to the benefits of a diverse faculty, many institutions are under pressure from students and administrators to increase the number of faculty from historically excluded backgrounds. Despite increases in the numbers of engineering PhD earners from these groups, the percentages of Black/African American and Hispanic/Latino tenure‐track faculty have not increased, and the percentage of women remains low.

   The purpose of this study is to identify how experiences in graduate school encourage or deter PhD earners from historically excluded groups in pursuing an engineering academic career.

   We conducted 20 semi‐structured interviews with engineering PhD students and recent graduates, with half of participants interested and half disinterested in pursuing an academic career after graduation.

   Three key factors emerged as strongly influential on participants' desire to pursue an academic career: their relationship with their advisor, their perception of their advisor's work–life balance, and their perception of the culture of academia. Participants extrapolated their experiences in graduate school to their imagined lives as faculty. The results illuminate the reasons why engineering PhD earners from historically underrepresented groups remain in or leave the academic career pathway after graduate school.

   The findings of this study have important implications for how graduate students' and postdoc's relationships with their advisors as well as perceptions of their advisors' work–life balances and the culture of academia affect future faculty. We make recommendations on what students, faculty, and administrators can do to create a more inclusive environment to encourage students from historically excluded groups to consider academic careers.

    

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5. “The lab isn't life”: Black engineering graduate students reprioritize values at the intersection of two pandemics

   https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20518  

   Coley, Brooke ; Thomas, Katreena ( April 2023 , Journal of Engineering Education)

   Black engineering graduate students represent a critical and understudied population in engineering education. Gaining an understanding of the lived experiences of Black engineering graduate students while they are simultaneously weathering two pandemics, COVID‐19 and systemic racism, is of paramount importance.

   Black engineering graduate students hold a unique duality, as both Black people in the United States and Black graduate students in US engineering programs that espouse white supremacist ideals. Their real‐world experiences necessitate understanding, and this paper highlights the related impact on the students themselves, their adaptations to the pandemics, and how those adaptations relate to and affect their support needs and navigation of their engineering academic environments.

   An interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) approach was combined with community‐based participatory action research and was situated in Boykin's Triple Quandary. A family check‐in was conducted with 10 Black engineering graduate students enrolled in doctoral programs across the country to delve deep into their lived experience as a cultural community.

   Findings include an emergent framework of Black engineering graduate student values in response to the pandemics. These values aligned with the Black Cultural Ethos, demonstrating an adoption of collectivistic cultural values in times of crises. Further, COVID‐19 and systemic racism differentially impacted Black engineering graduate students and, thus, the manifestations of their values.

   For institutions to be able to effectively support their Black engineering graduate students, they must gain awareness of the students' experiences, values, and needs, in general, and amid crises specifically. The findings presented here provide a critical window into this information.

    

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