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1. Research Methods to Study & Empower Crowd Workers

   Savage, S; Toxtli, C; Betanzos, E. (January 2021, Oxford)

   null (Ed.)

   The artificial intelligence (AI) industry has created new jobs that are essential to the real world deployment of intelligent systems. Part of the job focuses on labeling data for machine learning models or having workers complete tasks that AI alone cannot do. These workers are usually known as ‘crowd workers’—they are part of a large distributed crowd that is jointly (but separately) working on the tasks although they are often invisible to end-users, leading to workers often being paid below minimum wage and having limited career growth. In this chapter, we draw upon the field of human–computer interaction to provide research methods for studying and empowering crowd workers. We present our Computational Worker Leagues which enable workers to work towards their desired professional goals and also supply quantitative information about crowdsourcing markets. This chapter demonstrates the benefits of this approach and highlights important factors to consider when researching the experiences of crowd workers. 

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2. 'I wish I could do more': A qualitative meta-analysis of early career engineers' perceptions of agency in their workplaces

   Lutz, Benjamin; Canney, Nathan; Brunhaver, Samantha (June 2019, Proceedings of the American Society of Engineering Education Annual Conference)

   Engineering students graduate from their programs with a broad range of skills that are set by professional societies, industry recommendations, and other stakeholders in student success. But when those engineers enter their jobs, how are those skills utilized and nurtured by the organizations they enter? The purpose of this paper is to present a cross-sectional, secondary qualitative analysis of research exploring the experiences of recent engineering graduates as they move from student to professional. Of particular interest were the ways engineers describe their autonomy or sense of choice, the way engineers recognize and make sense of their organizations’ values, and the alignment (or lack thereof) between personal values and those of their organization. To do so, qualitative data sets from three different studies of engineers’ experiences at various stages in their professional trajectories were combined and thematically analyzed, producing four major themes that speak to the ways engineers perceive their sense of agency in their work experiences. Looking across data sets, themes emerged regarding empowerment, organizational fit, and workplace expectations. While these themes were common across the studies included in the analysis, the way the themes manifested across data sets raises interesting questions about the formation of engineers and the socialization experiences that contribute to that formation. As research on engineering practice continues to develop, it is important that researchers consider where engineers are within their career trajectory and how that influences their perceptions about the work they do and the agency they have within organizations. 

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3. “I wish I could do more”: A qualitative meta-analysis of early career engineers' perceptions of agency in their workplaces.

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--31920  

   Lutz, B.; Cannes, N.; Brunhaver, S. (June 2019, Proceedings of the American Society of Engineering Education Annual Conference, 2019)

   Engineering students graduate from their programs with a broad range of skills that are set by professional societies, industry recommendations, and other stakeholders in student success. But when those engineers enter their jobs, how are those skills utilized and nurtured by the organizations they enter? The purpose of this paper is to present a cross-sectional, secondary qualitative analysis of research exploring the experiences of recent engineering graduates as they move from student to professional. Of particular interest were the ways engineers describe their autonomy or sense of choice, the way engineers recognize and make sense of their organizations’ values, and the alignment (or lack thereof) between personal values and those of their organization. To do so, qualitative data sets from three different studies of engineers’ experiences at various stages in their professional trajectories were combined and thematically analyzed, producing four major themes that speak to the ways engineers perceive their sense of agency in their work experiences. Looking across data sets, themes emerged regarding empowerment, organizational fit, and workplace expectations. While these themes were common across the studies included in the analysis, the way the themes manifested across data sets raises interesting questions about the formation of engineers and the socialization experiences that contribute to that formation. As research on engineering practice continues to develop, it is important that researchers consider where engineers are within their career trajectory and how that influences their perceptions about the work they do and the agency they have within organizations. 

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4. Understanding the complementary nature of paid and volunteer crowds for content creation

   Saviaga, C; Granados, R; Savage, L; Escobedo, L; Savage, Saiph. (January 2020, Avances en interacción humanocomputadora)

   null (Ed.)

   Crowdsourced content creation like articles or slogans can be powered by crowds of volunteers or workers from paid task markets. Volunteers often have expertise and are intrinsically motivated, but are a limited resource, and are not always reliably available. On the other hand, paid crowd workers are reliably available, can be guided to produce high-quality content, but cost money. How can these different populations of crowd workers be leveraged together to power cost-effective yet high-quality crowd-powered content-creation systems? To answer this question, we need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each. We conducted an online study where we hired paid crowd workers and recruited volunteers from social media to complete three content creation tasks for three real-world non-profit organizations that focus on empowering women. These tasks ranged in complexity from simply generating keywords or slogans to creating a draft biographical article. Our results show that paid crowds completed work and structured content following editorial guidelines more effectively. However, volunteer crowds provide content that is more original. Based on the findings, we suggest that crowd-powered content-creation systems could gain the best of both worlds by leveraging volunteers to scaffold the direction that original content should take; while having paid crowd workers structure content and prepare it for real world use. 

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5. The Impact of Engineering Summer Camp Counseling on Students' Community Cultural Wealth and Engineering Identities

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--48107  

   Fleming, Gabriella; Julien, Christine; Fernandez, Kiersten (June 2024, ASEE Conferences)

   It has been shown that out-of-classroom experiences build engineering students’ professional skills and engineering identities. Many other universities host engineering summer camps for middle and high school students and employ engineering undergraduate students as camp counselors. These camps are designed for students with minimal previous exposure to engineering. In this research study, we explore the impact of working as a counselor in these camps on counselors’ Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) assets and self-defined characteristics of an engineer. Five summer camp counselors in one institution’s 2023 summer camp programs participated in post-camp semi-structured interviews about their experiences as counselors. Two counselors identified as Black/ African American and three as Hispanic/ Latino/a/é; two identified as women and three as men. Collectively, counselors discussed all six types of capital in the CCW framework. Most commonly, they reported that they are actively improving skills they believe engineers to have (aspirational capital), that being a camp counselor improved their communication skills (linguistic capital), and built them a close network of friends that many consider to be like family (familial capital). Those who were in affinity-based student orgs, such as the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), encouraged non-members to join, building their social capital on campus. One participant mentioned that because being a camp counselor was her first job, she gained valuable life skills such as completing tax forms and managing a personal budget (navigational capital). Some counselors also talked about what it meant to them to be role models for campers of their same racial/ ethnic backgrounds, since they didn’t know such engineers growing up (resistant capital). While out-of-classroom engineering experiences and their effects are well-studied, they are often limited to experiences such as extracurricular engineering activities or service learning projects. Despite the prevalence of engineering summer camp programs, the effects of working as a camp counselor are understudied. We hope that the results of this study will compel those running engineering summer camps to think not only about what the campers, but also the camp counselors themselves, are gaining from participating in these programs. 

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