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Research shows that the LGBTQ climate in engineering, and other STEM, undergraduate degree programs is rife with heteronormativity and cissexism, leading LGBTQ students to leave STEM majors and careers at higher rates than their heterosexual, cisgender peers. In order to develop a diverse STEM workforce and adequately prepare the next generation of professionals in STEM, higher education, and especially engineering education, must address inequities such as these to ensure broad participation in STEM fields. This NSF CAREER-funded project helps meet this need by examining the participation of LGBTQ students in STEM fields. The project focuses on three primary research aims to address this purpose: test the relationships between the composition of LGBTQ students’ social networks and non-cognitive STEM outcomes, compare STEM degree completion rates between LGBTQ students and their cisgender, heterosexual peers, and explore the intersection of STEM discipline-based identity (e.g., engineering identity, science identity) with sexual and gender identity. This project stands to improve our understanding of how to broaden participation in STEM by pursuing robust research efforts that illuminate the ways sexual and gender identity shape trajectories into, through, and out of STEM. The purpose of this poster is to present preliminary outcomes from the first research aim of the project, which is to test the relationship between composition of students’ social networks and non-cognitive outcomes, and compare these relationships by sexual and gender identities. We hypothesize that homophily within students’ social networks, especially for heterosexual and cisgender students, will predict greater levels of identification with one’s STEM discipline, sense of belonging in STEM, and commitment to a STEM major. LGBTQ students whose LGBTQ connections are primarily outside STEM are hypothesized to feel more of a pull away from STEM. This poster focuses on the social network analysis phase of the project, including instrument development, data collection procedures, and preliminary analysis of the data. Data collection will commence in the spring 2022 semester. Social network analysis (SNA) is a method that measures and represents the patterns and information of contextually bound structural relationships to explain why the relationships occur and the outcomes of their existence, and SNA is only recently gaining ground in educational research. We developed a survey that incorporates generating an ego-centric social network, or the people an individual relies on most for support, with existing measures for sense of belonging, discipline-based identity, and commitment to field of study, adapted for this study’s purpose. The survey validation procedure included cognitive interviews with undergraduate students and expert reviews by engineering education and institutional research experts. Data collection will occur at five colleges and universities nation-wide, representing a range of institutional types, geographical diversity, and student body diversity. The poster will detail the theory and procedures that constitute SNA research, the survey development process for this phase of the project, and preliminary results from analysis of the data.
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This content will become publicly available on June 1, 2025
Board 223: CAREER: Exploring the Intersection of LGBTQ Identities and STEM Disciplines: A Qualitative Narrative Approach
The purpose of this poster paper is to present progress toward reaching the third research aim of an NSF CAREER-funded study, using qualitative methods to explore the intersection of LGBTQ and STEM identities. The overall project purpose is to explore LGBTQ students’ engagement in STEM disciplines. LGBTQ students often leave engineering and other STEM fields at a higher rate than their peers due to unwelcoming environments, and engineering educators should tackle issues like heteronormativity and cissexism in the learning environment to promote diversity among future practicing engineers. The past year of the project has been focused on finishing data collection for the first research aim, investigating the influence of LGBTQ students' social networks on non-cognitive STEM outcomes, and securing data access agreements for the second research aim, comparing STEM degree completion rates between LGBTQ students and cisgender, heterosexual peers. For this poster, we focus on the process of developing a qualitative, narrative study exploring how LGBTQ STEM students experience discipline-based identities. Our poster presents the development of our interview protocol, grounded in engineering identity and possible selves, as well as our methods for collecting and analyzing qualitative data elicited through interviews. We use possible selves as an identity-based motivation framework in developing the interview protocol that focuses on students' anticipated career paths helping to understand how students are motivated to act in ways that are congruent to who they wish to become and wish to avoid becoming with respect to their decision to enter STEM. Development of the instrument began with a review of the literature to find key concepts that need to be covered in the interviews as well as example interview questions to be adapted for this study. In particular, the research team reviewed instruments used in prior research on possible selves to understand how existing procedures could be adapted to fit the purposes of this project. Following IRB approval, the interview protocol was refined through pilot testing with people who meet the study’s criteria for inclusion. Our next step is to recruit students for participation in this phase of the research. Many of these students will be identified through the survey from the first research aim of the project which gathered contact information for participants interested in participating in follow-up research. Others will be identified through recruitment nationally with organizations such as oSTEM. We expect to have preliminary data to discuss at the ASEE 2024 poster session, but data collection is expected to last through much of the coming year. Once these data are collected and analyzed, the overall project will move into a phase focused on completing the project’s educational aims and broad dissemination of findings across all three research aims.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2046233
- PAR ID:
- 10568996
- Publisher / Repository:
- ASEE Conferences
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Portland, Oregon
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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The purpose of this NSF CAREER project is to explore the participation of LGBTQ students in STEM fields. LGBTQ students leave engineering and other STEM majors and careers at higher rates than their heterosexual, cisgender peers, and the climate within these fields is a contributing factor to this difference in attrition. In order to develop a diverse engineering workforce and adequately prepare the next generation of engineers and other STEM professionals, engineering educators and departments must address inequities such as these to ensure broad participation. This purpose of this poster is to highlight progress toward meeting the first research aim of the overall project, to examine the social networks and related STEM outcomes of LGBTQ students. The project comprises three primary research aims, which also include future work comparing STEM degree completion rates between LGBTQ students and their cisgender, heterosexual peers, and exploring the intersection of STEM discipline-based identity (e.g., engineering identity, science identity) with sexual and gender identity. This project stands to improve our understanding of how to broaden participation in engineering and other STEM fields by pursuing robust research efforts that illuminate the ways sexual and gender identity shape trajectories into, through, and out of STEM. Over the past year of the project, we have accomplished developing and administering a survey to college students nationally. We administered the survey at two universities in Spring 2022 followed by a third in Fall 2022, and administration will conclude at two more in Spring 2023.The survey itself uses an egocentric social network analysis approach to gather data on the characteristics of a subset of students’ social networks, measures of several affective outcomes known to lead to academic persistence, and data on students’ college experiences and personal demographics. For this poster, we present our work testing how well the outcome measures performed in the survey instrument. Overall, our dataset as collected to date includes 404 students who completed the survey. Of these students, over half were women (58.2%), about a quarter were men (28.1%), and 8.9% were nonbinary, genderqueer, or gender nonconforming. In terms of sexual identity, 38.8% of were heterosexual, 30.1% were bisexual or pansexual, 14.4% were gay or lesbian, and 6.5% were asexual. Our survey measured three affective outcomes: sense of belonging in one’s major, commitment to one’s major, and science and engineering identity. Reliability testing and factor analysis demonstrated that our data performed well in replicating the factor structure of our measures, and content validity testing demonstrated these measures related as expected with other variables in the dataset.more » « less
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null (Ed.)Recognizing the need to attract and retain the most talented individuals to STEM professions, the National Academies advocate that diversity in STEM must be a national priority. To build a diverse workforce, educators within engineering must continue working to create an inclusive environment to prevent historically underrepresented students from leaving the field. Additionally, previous research provides compelling evidence that diversity among students and faculty is crucially important to the intellectual and social development of all students, and failure to create an inclusive environment for minority students negatively affects both minority and majority students. The dearth of research on the experiences of LGBTQ individuals in engineering is a direct barrier to improving the climate for LGBTQ in our classrooms, departments and profession. Recent studies show that engineering can be a “chilly climate” for LGBTQ individuals where “passing and covering” demands are imposed by a hetero/cis-normative culture within the profession. The unwelcoming climate for LGBTQ individuals in engineering may be a key reason that they are more likely than non-LGBTQ peers to leave engineering. This project builds on the success of a previous exploratory project entitled Promoting LGBTQ Equality in Engineering through Virtual Communities of Practice (VCP), hosted by ASEE (EEC 1539140). This project will support engineering departments’ efforts to create LGBTQ-inclusive environments using knowledge generated from the original grant. Our research focuses on understanding how Community of Practice (COP) characteristics develop among STEM faculty who work to increase LGBTQ inclusion; how STEM faculty as part of the VCP develop a change agent identity, and what strategies are effective in reshaping norms and creating LGBTQ-inclusive STEM departments. Therefore, our guiding research question is: How does a Virtual Community of Practice of STEM faculty develop from a group committed to improving the culture for the LGBTQ community? To answer our research question, we designed a qualitative Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) study based on in-depth individual interviews. Our study participants are STEM faculty across all ranks and departments. Our sample includes 16 STEM faculty participants. After consulting with IPA experts to establish face validation, we piloted the interview protocol with three experienced qualitative researchers. The focus of this paper presents the results of the pilot study and preliminary themes from a sample of the 16 individual interviews. Most participants discussed the supportive and affirming nature of the community. Interestingly, the supportive culture of the virtual community led to members to translate support to LGBTQ students or colleagues at their home institution. Additionally, the participants spoke in detail about how the group supported their identity development as an educator and as a professional (e.g. engineering identity) in addition to seeking opportunities to combine their advocacy work with their research. Therefore, the supportive culture and safe space to negotiate identity development allows the current VCP to develop. Future work of the group will translate the research findings into practice through the iterative refinement of the community’s advocacy and education efforts including the Safe Zone workshops.more » « less
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The purpose of this research paper is to test the difference in likelihood that LGBTQ students are open about their sexual or gender identities to peers in STEM than other members of their networks. LGBTQ students face pressures in STEM to hide their sexual and gender identities, which threatens their ability to experience state authenticity within STEM, or a congruence between their social identities and the environment. Incongruence would lead LGBTQ students to leave STEM majors at higher rates which undermines efforts to broaden participation in engineering. We used egocentric social network analysis to test differences in the likelihood that LGBTQ students are “out” to different members of their networks. We hypothesized that LGBTQ students are less likely to be out to peers in STEM than other members of their networks because of the culture and climate within STEM. Experiencing continued incongruence between one’s social identity and one’s environment, more common for minoritized individuals than others, can become a barrier to continued participation within that environment. Outness therefore serves as an indicator of how comfortable LGBTQ students are in STEM as an early predictor of whether they will persist in STEM. Results indicate participants were less likely to be out to peers in STEM than other peers. When we took whether the participant was a STEM major into consideration, the picture became less clear. Among STEM majors, participants reported being less likely to be out to their peers in STEM than other network members, but none of these factors were significant in a full-factor, mixed-effects regression model. These results suggest some degree of inauthenticity experienced by LGBTQ people with their peers in STEM, though the situation may be improving. These results implicate the role of climate in STEM through LGBTQ students’ relationships with their peers. If they feel they must be less open about their sexual or gender identities with peers in STEM, LGBTQ students are likely not experiencing a level of state authenticity within STEM that would retain them within these fields. Educators should consider how academic environments are construed to provide a supportive climate that allows LGBTQ students to be open and that sets expectations for all students to respect and welcome the contributions of their LGBTQ peers.more » « less
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This theoretical paper proposes a framework to understand LGBTQ participation in STEM that reveals how heterosexism and cissexism operate in engineering. We propose a framework that connects the low representation of LGBTQ students in engineering to experiences of inauthenticity that threatens their participation in engineering and motivation to persist in their studies. LGBTQ students’ social networks in engineering are composed predominantly of people of different sexual and gender identities than them, whereas cisgender, heterosexual students have access to networks composed of peers who nearly entirely share these identities with them. A concept from social network theory, homophily describes how much one's social network is composed of people who are like oneself. Homophilous networks validate personal experiences and identities in ways that we anticipate foster a greater sense of authenticity within those environments. Schmader and Sedikides posit within their State Authenticity as Fit to Environment model that authenticity is an essential human need induced in environments that are congruent with one’s sense of identity. Experiencing state authenticity increases motivation and engagement within that environment; experiencing inauthenticity does the opposite. Heterosexual, cisgender students experience authenticity within engineering with little question, whereas LGBTQ students are more likely to experience inauthenticity which interferes with their participation in engineering fields. Attention to state in/authenticity as a critical aspect of engineering learning environments may help shift these demotivating and disengaging environments for minoritized students like LGBTQ students who wish to pursue these fields of study. To better understand LGBTQ participation in engineering social network analysis could help unpack the relationship between the composition of engineering students’ social networks, their experiences of in/authenticity, and different educational and vocational outcomes in engineering. This may also offer insight into how students organize their networks into environments where they are more likely to experience state authenticity. Implications for practice include helping LGBTQ students find community in engineering and other STEM fields through organizations like Out to Innovate and oSTEM.more » « less
