Prior scholarship on broadening participation in undergraduate computing education has made important contributions to supporting underrepresented students’ identity development and persistence. However, the specific experiences of low-income students are underexplored, and the critical juncture between undergraduate education and career or graduate school pathways are as well. For scholarship support programs to make a further impact on broadening participation in computing, it is critical to know low-income students’ viewpoints on the barriers, risks, and opportunities associated with different career pathways that influence their post-graduation plans.
Our research seeks to better understand the future career pathway perceptions of low-income undergraduate computing students. We explore students’ perceptions of three specific pathways: pursuing a graduate degree, working for a large company, and becoming an entrepreneur.
This study utilizes Bourdieu’s conception of economic capital, cultural capital, and social capital to understand low-income students’ perceptions of their future career pathways.
This study is a part of a National Science Foundation-funded program that provides need-based scholarships, internship connections, research opportunities, and entrepreneurial education to low-income students pursuing a bachelor’s degree in computer science, information technology, cybersecurity, or computer engineering. The program includes three large, public universities in the Southeast United States and was launched in September 2021. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 16 participants from one of the participating universities to gather information about their perceptions of professional, graduate school, and entrepreneurial career pathways. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using thematic coding.
We found that the majority of our low-income participants plan to work for a large technology-focused company immediately after graduation. However, some participants indicated that the program’s scholarship, which covers up to two years of graduate education in a computing field, gives them the ability to consider pursuing a master’s degree between completing their bachelor’s degree and entering the workforce. Additionally, though many participants expressed that the idea of becoming an entrepreneur is appealing, the financial risks associated with entrepreneurship deter them from considering this career pathway themselves. Ultimately, our findings suggest that financial stability is a crucial consideration for low-income computing students as they contemplate their future goals.
The participants’ responses demonstrate the importance of need-based financial aid and internship connections for low-income computing students. Furthermore, our findings indicate that intervention programs that aim to support low-income students’ career development should be more sensitive to the unique perspectives and financial concerns of low-income students when they promote graduate school and entrepreneurial pathways.
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This content will become publicly available on June 26, 2024
Building a Framework to Understand the Impact of Entrepreneurship Support Programs on the Formation of Engineers
Entrepreneurship Support Programs (ESP) in engineering provide education, mentoring, and advising for emerging entrepreneurs and their ventures. The impact of ESPs on engineering students’ professional formation and the acquisition of different attributes—such as creativity, risk-taking, empathy, and curiosity—is largely unknown. Though the social sciences have a strong and robust history of studying many of the attributes, such as creativity and problem-solving, typically associated with entrepreneurship, there has been little connection between this foundational research and the work of ESPs. In fact, two separate systematic reviews have shown that most published work in STEM entrepreneurship education is not theoretically grounded and does not follow standards of quality research approaches in the social sciences. In an effort to bridge the gap between social scientists and engineering entrepreneurship practitioners, the authors are conducting a two-phase study. Phase 1 of the study involves conducting a Delphi study to identify the top entrepreneurial attributes of professionals and researchers who lead ESPs. Phase 2 of the study includes conducting workshops with social scientists who study the attributes and ESP leaders. The goal of the workshops is to identify assessment frameworks grounded in social science theory and literature that will guide the measurement of the attributes. This session will focus on the results of the Delphi phase.
Delphi study is a common research technique used to achieve consensus among experts (Hasson, Keeney, and McKenna, 2000). Seventy-three participants who lead or have led an ESP, have conducted research in entrepreneurship education, or act as administrators for relevant entrepreneurship programs were invited to participate in the Delphi study. Of the 73 invited, 14 completed at least two rounds of the Delphi study. All participants were experts in the field of engineering entrepreneurship education. The Delphi Study comprised three rounds- brainstorming, narrowing, and ranking. Each phase of the Delphi asked participants to think about three different sets of attributes: 1) entrepreneurial attributes that they thought were important in the development of an entrepreneur, 2) attributes in becoming a successful professional, and 3) attributes in working in an inclusive workspace. In the brainstorming phase, participants were sent an online questionnaire and were asked to brainstorm as many attributes as they could think of. The results of the brainstorming questionnaire were consolidated and used to develop the narrowing questionnaire, where participants were asked to narrow all attributes to the top 10 key attributes The results from the narrowing questionnaire were then used to develop a ranking questionnaire, where participants were asked to rank the items on a scale of importance with 1 being the most important to 10 being the least important for each set of attributes. The results of the phase 3 questionnaire were analyzed to identify the attributes that were ranked the highest among a majority of the participants. This paper discusses the findings of the Delphi Study and its implications in assessing the impact of ESP on entrepreneur formation.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2220329
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10470257
- Publisher / Repository:
- AMERICAN SOCIETY OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- BALTIMORE, MD, USA
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Prior scholarship on broadening participation in undergraduate computing education has made important contributions to supporting underrepresented students’ identity development and persistence. However, the specific experiences of low-income students are underexplored, and the critical juncture between undergraduate education and career or graduate school pathways are as well. For scholarship support programs to make a further impact on broadening participation in computing, it is critical to know low-income students’ viewpoints on the barriers, risks, and opportunities associated with different career pathways that influence their post-graduation plans. Our research seeks to better understand the future career pathway perceptions of low-income undergraduate computing students. We explore students’ perceptions of three specific pathways: pursuing a graduate degree, working for a large company, and becoming an entrepreneur. This study utilizes Bourdieu’s conception of economic capital, cultural capital, and social capital to understand low-income students’ perceptions of their future career pathways. This study is a part of a National Science Foundation-funded program that provides need-based scholarships, internship connections, research opportunities, and entrepreneurial education to low-income students pursuing a bachelor’s degree in computer science, information technology, cybersecurity, or computer engineering. The program includes three large, public universities in the Southeast United States and was launched in September 2021. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 16 participants from one of the participating universities to gather information about their perceptions of professional, graduate school, and entrepreneurial career pathways. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using thematic coding. We found that the majority of our low-income participants plan to work for a large technology-focused company immediately after graduation. However, some participants indicated that the program’s scholarship, which covers up to two years of graduate education in a computing field, gives them the ability to consider pursuing a master’s degree between completing their bachelor’s degree and entering the workforce. Additionally, though many participants expressed that the idea of becoming an entrepreneur is appealing, the financial risks associated with entrepreneurship deter them from considering this career pathway themselves. Ultimately, our findings suggest that financial stability is a crucial consideration for low-income computing students as they contemplate their future goals. The participants’ responses demonstrate the importance of need-based financial aid and internship connections for low-income computing students. Furthermore, our findings indicate that intervention programs that aim to support low-income students’ career development should be more sensitive to the unique perspectives and financial concerns of low-income students when they promote graduate school and entrepreneurial pathways.more » « less
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Prior scholarship on broadening participation in undergraduate computing education has made important contributions to supporting underrepresented students’ identity development and persistence. However, the specific experiences of low-income students are underexplored, and the critical juncture between undergraduate education and career or graduate school pathways are as well. For scholarship support programs to make a further impact on broadening participation in computing, it is critical to know low-income students’ viewpoints on the barriers, risks, and opportunities associated with different career pathways that influence their post-graduation plans. Our research seeks to better understand the future career pathway perceptions of low-income undergraduate computing students. We explore students’ perceptions of three specific pathways: pursuing a graduate degree, working for a large company, and becoming an entrepreneur. This study utilizes Bourdieu’s conception of economic capital, cultural capital, and social capital to understand low-income students’ perceptions of their future career pathways. This study is a part of a National Science Foundation-funded program that provides need-based scholarships, internship connections, research opportunities, and entrepreneurial education to low-income students pursuing a bachelor’s degree in computer science, information technology, cybersecurity, or computer engineering. The program includes three large, public universities in the Southeast United States and was launched in September 2021. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 16 participants from one of the participating universities to gather information about their perceptions of professional, graduate school, and entrepreneurial career pathways. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using thematic coding. We found that the majority of our low-income participants plan to work for a large technology-focused company immediately after graduation. However, some participants indicated that the program’s scholarship, which covers up to two years of graduate education in a computing field, gives them the ability to consider pursuing a master’s degree between completing their bachelor’s degree and entering the workforce. Additionally, though many participants expressed that the idea of becoming an entrepreneur is appealing, the financial risks associated with entrepreneurship deter them from considering this career pathway themselves. Ultimately, our findings suggest that financial stability is a crucial consideration for low-income computing students as they contemplate their future goals. The participants’ responses demonstrate the importance of need-based financial aid and internship connections for low-income computing students. Furthermore, our findings indicate that intervention programs that aim to support low-income students’ career development should be more sensitive to the unique perspectives and financial concerns of low-income students when they promote graduate school and entrepreneurial pathways.more » « less
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