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In this methods paper, the development and utility of composite narratives will be explored. Composite narratives, which involve combining aspects of multiple interviews into a single narrative, are a relatively modern methodology used in the qualitative research literature for several purposes: to do justice to complex accounts while maintaining participant anonymity, summarize data in a more engaging personal form and retain the human face of the data, illustrate specific aspects of the research findings, enhance the transferability of research findings by invoking empathy, illuminate collective experiences, and enhance research impact by providing findings in a manner more accessible to those outside of academia. Composite narratives leverage the power of storytelling, which has shown to be effective in studies of neurology and psychology; i.e., since humans often think and process information in narrative structures, the information conveyed in story form can be imprinted more easily on readers’ minds or existing schema. Engineering education researchers have increasingly begun using narrative research methods. Recently, researchers have begun exploring composite narratives as an approach to enable more complex and nuanced understandings of engineering education while mitigating potential issues around the confidentiality of participants. Because this is a relatively new methodology in higher education more broadly and in engineering education specifically, more examples of how to construct and utilize composite narratives in both research and practice are needed. This paper will share how we created a composite narrative from interviews we collected for our work so that others can adapt this methodology for their research projects. The paper will also discuss ways we modified and enhanced these narratives to connect research to practice and impact engineering students. This approach involved developing probing questions to stimulate thinking, learning, and discussion in academic and industrial educational settings. We developed the composite narratives featured in this paper from fifteen semi-structured critical incident interviews with engineering managers about their perceptions of adaptability. The critical incidents shared were combined to develop seven composite narratives reflecting real-life situations to which engineers must adapt in the workplace. These scenarios, grounded in the data, were taken directly to the engineering classroom for discussion with students on how they would respond and adapt to the presented story. In this paper, we detail our process of creating one composite narrative from the broader study and its associated probing questions for research dissemination in educational settings. We present this detailed account of how one composite narrative was constructed to demonstrate the quality and trustworthiness of the composite narrative methodology and assist in its replication by other scholars. Further, we discuss the benefits and limitations of this methodology, highlighting the parts of the data brought into focus using this method and how that contrasts with an inductive-deductive approach to qualitative coding also taken in this research project. 

This research paper examines the influence of interpersonal interactions on the course-level persistence intentions of online undergraduate engineering students. Online learning is increasing in enrollment and importance in engineering education. Online courses also continue to confront issues with comparatively higher course dropout levels than face-to-face courses. This study correspondingly explores relevant student perceptions of their online course experiences to better understand the factors that contribute to students’ choices to remain in or drop out of their online undergraduate engineering courses. Data presented in this study were collected during fall 2019 and spring 2020 from three ABET-accredited online undergraduate engineering courses at a large southwestern public university: electrical engineering, engineering management, and software engineering. Participants were asked to respond to surveys at 12-time points during their 7.5-week online course. Each survey measured students’ perceptions of course LMS dialog, perceptions of instructor practices, and peer support for completing the course. Participants also reported their intentions to persist in the course during each survey administration. A multi-level modeling analysis revealed that LMS dialog, perceptions of instructor practices, and peer support are related to course persistence intentions. Time was also a significant predictor of persistence intentions and indicated that the course persistence intentions decrease towards the end of the course. Additionally, interactions between demographic variables and other predictors (perceptions of course LMS dialog, perceptions of instructor practices, and perceptions of peer support) were significant. With the increase in perceptions of course LMS dialog, perceptions of instructor practices, and perceptions of peer support, there was a relatively smaller increase in the persistence intentions of veterans than non-veterans. There is relatively more increase in the persistence intentions of females than males as their perceptions of instructor practices increase. Finally, increasing perceptions of peer support led to a relatively larger increase in the persistence intentions of non-transfer students than transfer students and a relatively smaller increase in persistence intentions of students working full-time than other students. 

This highly interactive special session has two goals: developing a deeper understanding of current research on engineering practice, and connecting and growing a diverse and vibrant scholarly community interested in this topic. There has arguably never been a more exciting time to examine engineering practice. In addition to a strong employment outlook for most engineering specialties, engineering careers are being reshaped and reimagined by rapid technological change, intensified globalization trends, new cross-disciplinary interactions, demographic shifts, and changing organizational structures. Colleges, universities, and organizations such as ABET, Inc., the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and the National Science Foundation (NSF) are leading the charge to improve the alignment of engineering education with the demands of professional practice in response to these trends, potentially revolutionizing how current and future engineers are prepared as innovators, leaders, and change agents. Yet, not much is known about the diverse and multi-faceted realities of modern engineering practice and how this knowledge can be used to improve the education and training of engineers across career stages. Through presentations, networking opportunities, and group discussions, the special session will focus on using research on engineering practice to transform engineering education and the workforce.