An official website of the United States government
Leaders in industry and government are calling for increasing innovation in STEM fields to maintain the nation's economic competitiveness [15]. Solving today's complex challenges will require cooperation among experts from many fields. Successful leaders must harness the diverse capabilities of teams composed of these experts and be technically skilled. Undergraduate engineering students can fill this need by learning how to be effective leaders during their formation as engineers. Unfortunately, many engineering students graduate with little development of leadership skills; engineering educators do not currently have a sufficient understanding of how engineering students develop into leaders. This NSF ECE supported project seeks to improve educators’ understanding of the interaction between leadership and engineering identities in the formation of undergraduate engineers. This work postulates that a cohesive engineering leadership identity should exist at the intersection of engineering and leadership identities. Now entering its second year the project is wrapping up its quantitative phase and is beginning the qualitative phase of investigation. This paper discusses the process of developing the qualitative research protocols used to explore identity formation in groups of undergraduate engineers at three different campuses. The discussion shows the formation of the protocol using prior work in leadership and engineering identity constructs from both this project and the literature. The protocol development, methods, and findings from early interviews are presented. Initial findings suggest several factors are important to engineering educators interested in developing engineers who are ready to lead. The findings include evidence of some level of conflict between engineering identity and leadership identity as well as further evidence of engineering students’ compartmentalization of leadership as outside of engineering. In addition, this paper includes the learning outcomes of three REU students who joined the project to assist with the development of the qualitative protocol. The REU students made significant contributions to initial data collection as participants and observers. The REU students were the lead authors of this paper.
more »
« less
Building a Leadership Toolkit: Underrepresented Students' Development of Leadership-Enabling Competencies through a Summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) in Engineering Education
The development of inclusive leaders is essential for the success of future engineering and our nation. Equipping students with vital leadership-enabling competencies is necessary to develop a workforce that is prepared to act ethically, and responsibly, and tackle unforeseen challenges in the future. Inclusive leaders, or leaders that are self-aware, empathetic, and prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion in their decision-making, are essential for the forward progress of engineering. A growing body of literature highlights the numerous ways in which students may develop leadership skills outside of the classroom through involvement in out-of-class activities (e.g., internships, clubs, sports, and research experiences). Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs) may provide students with a unique opportunity to develop leadership-enabling competencies that will prepare them for leadership in graduate school, the engineering industry, or academia. The goal of this research was to identify how students’ engagement in an engineering education virtual REU site contributed to their development of essential leadership-enabling competencies. The research question guiding this study was ‘What inclusive leadership-enabling competencies and skills did engineering students learn and develop during an engineering education Summer REU program?’ Qualitative data was collected via weekly open-ended surveys from 9 students (7 women, 2 men) participating in an REU over 9 weeks. Participants in this study consisted of students from underrepresented groups in engineering (e.g., Black, Latinx, women, students from low SES backgrounds, or first-generation students), attending large public research universities across the United States. This study implemented mixed methods to understand what leadership competencies were occurring most frequently and how students were learning and developing these competencies. A combination of text mining for frequency (quantitative analysis) and deductive and inductive coding (qualitative analysis) was used to analyze the data. A codebook was developed based on the leadership-coupled professional competencies that engineering industry leaders identified as essential for engineers entering the workforce. Researchers also allowed for other competencies and leadership-enabling skills to emerge from the data. Findings from this work indicate that students were developing a vast amount of inclusive leadership knowledge and skills from participating in the virtual REU site. This paper highlights, through the use of word clouds and text mining software, the many leadership-enabling competencies that participants developed throughout the summer research experience (e.g., learning, communication, adaptability, self-awareness, balance, networking, etc.). Further, students were able to develop digital literacy, increased communication skills, knowledge of career pathways, intrapersonal growth, and interpersonal relations. This work offers a novel contribution to the literature in understanding how students can develop technical engineering and research skills as well as professional and leadership skills in the same space. Findings from this work help to illuminate the benefits of this virtual REU site focused on engineering education research resulting in terms of developing inclusive leadership skills. Implications for future REU programs, students interested in developing leadership skills, engineering graduate programs, academia, and industry employers are outlined.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 2050899
- PAR ID:
- 10493054
- Publisher / Repository:
- ASEE Conferences
- Date Published:
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- leadership REU underrepresented students engineering competencies undergraduate engineer
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Baltimore , Maryland
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
This work in progress reports an intervention to develop leadership skills in engineering undergraduate students. A methodology based on a cognitive apprentice framework was implemented, where coaching, Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL), cooperative learning, reflection, and self-assessment are combined to train peer leaders from different engineering programs. Students in the PLTL Peer Leaders initiative are low-income academically talented students (LIATS) from a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). Early results analyzing post workshop reflections and self-assessment of peer leaders were used to identify changes in leadership skills of peer leaders. This paper reports on the methodology employed and early results from students’ reflection and self-assessment.more » « less
-
In order to lead the social process required to solve society’s grandest challenges and ensure that the capabilities of an expanded engineering workforce are successfully harnessed, new engineers must be more than just technical experts—they must also be technical leaders. Greater numbers of engineering educators are recognizing this need and establishing engineering leadership certificates and minors through centers at universities throughout the country. While the implementation of these offerings is a step forward, most programs tend to focus on leadership as a set of skills or experiences bolted onto a traditional engineering education with limited formal evidence of the impact these experiences have on student development. The purpose of this study is to test the effect of experiences engineering students have in leadership roles on their perceived gains in leadership skills, using a national dataset. The framework guiding this study is a model for engineering leadership identity constructed from Lave and Wenger’s communities of practice model and Komives et al.’s model for leadership identity development (LID) which recognizes that the engineering formation process is, at its core, an identity development process. Engineering leadership is theorized to develop from peripheral participation in engineering communities of practice in ways that promote students’ leadership development. Specifically, undertaking leadership roles in curricular and co-curricular engineering activities develops students’ sense of engineering leadership identity, which results in their recognition of gains in different leadership skills. The data for this study come from the 2015 administration of the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), overseen by the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University. The NSSE is administered to a random sample of first- and fourth-year students, and focuses on curricular and co-curricular student engagement. In 2015, NSSE included a pilot module to assess leadership experiences at 21 participating institutions. The overall sample includes 2607 students who held a leadership role, among whom are 90 engineering students. The dependent variables for this study are a set of eight items prompting students to indicate the extent to which participation in a leadership role contributed to development of different leadership skills. This study employs multiple regression to test the relationships among leadership related experiences and eight leadership skill outcomes for engineering students. Significant results across the eight regression models paint a complex portrait regarding factors that affect gains in leadership skills for engineering students. For example, receiving formal leadership training is a significant positive predictor of only three of the leadership outcomes explored in this work: thinking critically and analytically, working effectively with others, and continuing leadership after college. These results can be utilized by educators engaged in Engineering Leadership education to tailor their program experiences and better achieve the desired educational outcomes.more » « less
-
null (Ed.)This project explores the leadership beliefs, experiences, and knowledge/skills of undergraduate engineering students who have self-identified as having leadership experience at a Research I minority serving institution for Asian Americans and Native Americans, as well as a Hispanic Serving Institution. Thirty-two undergraduate engineering students with self-identified leadership experience were recruited from the College of Engineering across the various majors. In this paper, the perspective of how students described their self-identities and the emerging categories of negative leadership experiences that act as external stressors is presented and discussed specifically for the students that identified as belonging to an underrepresented minority group, including those that were multiracial. The research illustrates how nuances need to be explored to understand how intersectionality of critical race theory with feminist theory increases the complexity of creating an inclusive logic model that can be incorporated into a theory of change that increases academic and professional success of engineers as future leaders within an organization.more » « less
-
This paper describes a National Science Foundation-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site program conducted through virtual working environment. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, REU 2021 activities were conducted online through Canvas and Zoom communication platforms. The major aim of this program is to provide undergraduate students with experiences in engineering education research (i.e., education research in the context of engineering). This paper provides an overview of the program, and briefly describes the virtual working environment, and students’ research experiences during the 10-week program. A total of 11 undergraduate students, seven graduate mentors, and seven faculty mentors have actively participated in the program. The program is conducted in two phases: Phases 1 (i.e., Weeks 1-2) and 2 (i.e., Weeks 3-10). Phase 1 consists of preparatory and foundational work that is delivered to participants and will allow them to begin Phase 2 with some educational research foundation already established. The results of the project evaluation show that the program has made a positive impact on increasing education research skills and communication skills of the participating REU students. The participating REU students reported that the research projects they worked on increased their motivation and confidence for continuing to engage in engineering education research. Four participants (i.e., 36.4% of the total participants) suggested that, if available, they would prefer face-to-face over a virtual REU program. Another four participants (i.e., 36.4%) felt that both face-to-face and virtual would offer the same quality of research experiences, and 3 participants (i.e., 27.2% of the total participants) voiced their preference of virtual over face-to-face REU program.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--43054
