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1. Classroom Practices that Support Minoritized Engineering Students’ Sense of Belonging

   Rainey, Arielle; Verdín, Dina; Smith, Jessica (January 2021, Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education)

   null (Ed.)

   Establishing and sustaining a sense of belonging is a necessary human motivation with particular implications for student learning, including in engineering. Students who experience a sense of belonging are more likely to display intrinsic motivation and establish a stronger sense of identity and persistence. It is important, however, to distinguish different domains of belonging, such as belonging to one’s university, belonging to a major, and belonging in the classroom setting. Our study examines if and how faculty support efforts contribute to diverse students’ sense of belonging in the classroom setting. Specifically, we sought to answer the following research questions: Which faculty support efforts promote a sense of classroom belongingness? Do faculty support efforts differentially promote a sense of classroom belongingness for students based on their demographic characteristics? Data for this study was collected in the Fall of 2018, across ten institutions, n = 819. We used the Faculty Support items from the STEM Student Perspectives of Support Instrument developed from Lee’s model of co-curricular support to answer our research questions. Demographic categories were created to understand if and how faculty support efforts differentially promote a sense of belonging for minoritized students compared to their counterparts. Multiple regression analysis was conducted to examine the faculty support efforts that fostered a sense of belonging in the classroom. Interaction effects were included to understand how faculty support efforts affected classroom belongingness for the students in the demographic groups we identified. Minoritized women were less likely to feel a sense of belonging in the classroom when compared to majoritized men. Neither groups of women believed that their instructors wanted them to succeed, thus negatively impacting their classroom belongingness. There were, however, faculty support efforts that positively contributed to a sense of belonging in the classroom for minoritized women, including instructors’ availability, knowing that they could ask instructors for help in course-related material, and when instructors fostered an atmosphere of mutual respect. Additionally, minoritized women felt a sense of classroom belonging when they could capitalize on their previous experiences to scaffold their learning. Our findings highlight classroom practices and strategies faculty can use in the classroom to support minoritized women’s sense of belonging. These practices and strategies will be a crucial resource for engineering educators and administrators who seek to improve the field’s retention of minoritized and women students. Whereas efforts have been made to recruit minoritized students into engineering, our study points to a clear and crucial role for faculty to play: they can support minoritized students by fostering a sense of belonging in engineering classrooms. 

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2. Piloting a Socio-Culturally Responsive Peer-Mentoring Program to Promote HLX+ Students’ Sense of Belonging in Engineering Education: Lessons Learned from Year 1

   Joslyn, Cole Hatfield; Golding, Peter (June 2023, 2023 American Society of Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition)

   An abundance of literature demonstrates that women’s and minorities’ sense of belonging, or lack thereof, influences their academic performance and persistence in STEM education and careers. To address this problem, we developed a holistic, socio-culturally responsive peer-mentoring program that provided an academic, institutional, and social support system for first-year engineering students. The purpose of this program, Promoviendo el Éxito Estudiantil a través de un Sistema de Apollo (PromESA), is to increase students’ sense of belonging and, by extension, their persistence and graduation rates in engineering, particularly for Latinx students and their intersectionalities. The pilot mentoring program was integrated into a first-year sequence of courses where students would meet with their peer-mentors (i.e., Compañeros/as) during class time. Compañeros/as (Compas for short) provided their mentees with assistance such as tutoring, advising, directing them to available university services and, equally important, emotional support through building friendship, confirmation, and affirmation to improve the students’ sense of belonging. The research seeks to identify academic, institutional, and social support elements that positively influence students’ sense of belonging and explore how integrating Latinx cultural assets and values influence Latinx students’ perceptions of engineering. Findings from the first year of implementation reveal that participants with peer-mentors from their academic major reported a higher sense of belonging than participants with peer-mentors from other academic majors. Also, participants reported receiving social support (i.e., peer and classroom), regardless of academic major. Participant feedback was mixed, with some reporting that peer-mentoring was a key contributor to their sense of belonging while others reported that it contributed somewhat to their sense of belonging and a few reported that it did not contribute to their sense of belonging at all. 

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3. Neurodivergent Engineering Students’ Sense of Belonging at the University, Major, and Course Levels: A Mixed Methods Study

   Bolding, Candice Wicker; O'Hara, Robert; Edwards, Penny; and Mulholland, Katherine (June 2024, 2023 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition)

   This work seeks to provide postsecondary engineering stakeholders (e.g., faculty and administrators) with information that can bolster their support of neurodivergent engineering students by exploring how sense of belonging influences their academic experiences and outcomes. 

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4. Role of mentorship, career conceptualization, and leadership in developing women’s physics identity and belonging

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.20.010114  

   Rosenberg, Jessica L; Holincheck, Nancy; Fernández, Kathryn; Dreyfus, Benjamin W; Wardere, Fardousa; Stehle, Stephanie; Butler, Tiffany N (March 2024, Physical Review Physics Education Research)

   The percentage of women receiving bachelor’s degrees in physics (25%) in the U.S. lags well behind that of men, and women leave the major at higher rates. Achieving equity in physics will mean that women stay in physics at the same rates as men, but this will require changes in the culture and support structures. A strong sense of belonging can lead to higher retention rates so interventions meant to increase dimensions of physics identity (interest, recognition, performance, and competence) may increase persistence overall and increase women’s retention differentially. We describe our model in which mentorship, an understanding of career options (career conceptualization), and leadership are inputs into the development of these dimensions of physics identity. This paper includes preliminary results from a qualitative study that aims to better understand how career conceptualization, leadership, and mentorship contribute to the development of physics identity and belonging. We report results from a survey of 15 undergraduate physics students which was followed up by interviews with 5 of those students. The students were from 2 institutions: a small private liberal arts college in the midwest region of the U.S. and a large public university in the southeast region of the U.S. classified as a Hispanic-serving institution (HSI). With respect to mentorship, consistent with the existing literature, we found that it could provide critical support for students’ engagement in the physics community. Leadership experiences have not previously been positioned as an important input into identity, yet we found that they helped women in physics feel more confident, contributing to their recognition of themselves as physics people. While the data on how career conceptualization contributed to the building of identity is limited, there are some connections to recognition and competence, and it will be an interesting avenue of future exploration. Published by the American Physical Society2024 

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5. The power of interest: minoritized women’s interest in engineering fosters persistence beliefs beyond belongingness and engineering identity

   https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-021-00292-1  

   Verdín, Dina (December 2021, International Journal of STEM Education)

   null (Ed.)

   Abstract Backgrounds This study examined how developing an engineering identity through the interplay between interest, recognition, and performance/competence beliefs and establishing a sense of belonging supported women’s persistence beliefs in engineering. Persistence belief in this study is captured through women’s certainty of graduating with an engineering degree. Students’ levels of motivation, affective states, and actions are based on what students believe to be true. Data were gathered from a survey administered to engineering students at nine institutions across the USA. Only female engineering students were used in the analysis. Students were further grouped into categories based on the representation of their race/ethnicity in engineering; 121 women were identified as minoritized in engineering, and 252 were identified as part of the majority group in engineering. Structural equation modeling was used to understand how the development of an engineering identity and modes of belonging (i.e., belonging in the major and in the classroom environment) supported women’s certainty to graduate with an engineering degree. All latent constructs were examined for measurement invariance; partial measurement invariance was achieved. Equality constraints on the structural paths of the model were not enforced to allow for differences across groups. Results Seeing oneself as an engineer (i.e., internal recognition) did not support minoritized women’s certainty to persist toward degree completion, whereas this internal recognition supported majority women’s persistence. Belonging in the major and belonging in the classroom environment did not support minoritized women’s certainty to persist. Establishing a sense of belonging in the classroom environment supported majority women’s certainty to persist. Minoritized women’s persistence toward degree completion was supported by their interest in engineering and their confidence in performing well in engineering coursework. However, interest in engineering was two times more influential toward minoritized women’s persistence than their performance competence beliefs. Conclusion These findings provide educators with a nuanced understanding of how identity development and modes of belonging differentially affect women’s persistence beliefs. These findings suggest that educators need to understand the powerful influence minoritized women’s interest in engineering has on their persistence beliefs and create mechanisms to continuously reinforce interest. 

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