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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.
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Motivations and Barriers to Participation in Community Outreach and Engagement among Environmental and Water Resources Engineering Students
Universities serve as a hub for the advancement of water science and engineering knowledge and innovations. Communities outside of academia hold equally valid expertise on water and environmental topics. However, there is a lack of avenues for knowledge exchange between academia and non-academic communities including homeowners, industry professionals, policy makers, and K-12 students and teachers. Many universities and research centers attempt to enhance knowledge sharing by organizing broader impact outreach events such as lab tours, demonstrations, hands-on activities, and public presentations. This work studies water-focused students who we define to be students from all disciplines (engineering, biology, sociology, geography, planning, etc.) that study water resources, quality, treatment, and management. Anecdotally, we have seen that of a pool of approximately 100 water-focused students, only the same small subset participates in every event while over 70% of those invited never volunteer. Therefore, there is a need to assess why we see this occurrence. This study aims to survey undergraduate and graduate student water scholars’ motivations and barriers for participating in volunteer broader impact outreach events outside of their degree requirements. This study collected quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative data were collected through Likert-scale type responses to motivating and hindering factors. Qualitative data were collected through written responses to questions on specific positive or negative student experiences and attitudes. Four main outreach trends emerged: 1) Students enjoy attending outreach events and find it helpful to themselves and to society; 2) Attending events leads students to want to participate in more; 3) Lack of time is by far the top hinderance; 4) Students are motivated by mentor support. Study findings suggest three possible steps to implementing a targeted strategy for broader impact student outreach that aligns with student desires at university research centers: 1) Choice of outreach events should emphasize the contribution to society; 2) Outreach recruitment should emphasize skills students will gain; 3) Faculty mentors should genuinely support their students’ outreach endeavors including finding relevant outreach opportunities.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1914490
- PAR ID:
- 10525017
- Publisher / Repository:
- ASEE Conferences
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Baltimore , Maryland
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--42290
