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Disabled people continue to be significantly underrepresented and marginalized in engineering. Current reports indicate that approximately 26 percent of US adults have some form of disability. Yet only 6 percent of undergraduate students enrolled in engineering programs belong to this group. Several barriers have been identified that discourage and even prohibit people with disabilities from participating in engineering including arduous accommodations processes, lack of institutional support, and negative peer, staff, and faculty attitudes. These barriers are perpetuated and reinforced by a variety of ableist sociocultural norms and definitions that rely on popularized tropes and medicalized models that influence the ways this group experiences school to become engineers. In this paper, we seek to contribute to conversations that shape understanding of disability identity and the ways it is conceptualized in engineering programs. We revisit interview data from an ongoing grounded theory exploration of professional identity formation of undergraduate civil engineering students who identify as having one or more disabilities. Through our qualitative analysis, we identified overarching themes that contribute to understanding of how participants define and integrate disability identity to form professional identities and the ways they reshape and contribute to the civil engineering field through this lens. Emergent themes include experiencing/considering disability identity as a fluid experience, as a characteristic that ‘sets you apart’, and as a medicalized symptom or condition. Findings from this work can be used by engineering educators and administrators to inform more effective academic and personal support structures to destigmatize disability and promote the participation and inclusion of students and colleagues with disabilities in engineering and in our academic and professional communities. 

This paper proposes the use of collaborative secondary data analysis (SDA) as a tool for building capacity in engineering education research. We first characterise the value of collaborative SDA as a tool to help emerging researchers develop skills in qualitative data analysis. We then describe an ongoing collaboration that involves a series of workshops as well as two pilot projects that seek to develop and test frameworks and practices for SDA in engineering education research. We identify emerging benefits and practical challenges associated with implementing SDA as a capacity building tool, and conclude with a discussion of future work. 

In this paper, we argue that the exploration of engineering judgment in undergraduate education should be grounded at the intersection of decision making, situated cognition, and engineering identity production. In our view, engineering judgment is an embodied cognitive process that is situated in written and oral communication, involved with immediate praxis, and takes place within the contexts of standards and traditions of the engineering communities of practice. Moreover, engineering judgment is constituted as authoritative communication tasks that draw on the subject’s and audience’s common experiences and knowledge base for its clarity and persuasive power (e.g., Weedon (2019), "The role of rhetoric in engineering judgment," IEEE Trans. Prof. Commun. 62(2):165-177). The objective of this work short essay is to review the engineering education literature with the aim of synthesizing the concept of engineering judgment from theories of decision-making, identity, communities of practice, and discourse communities. Although the rationale for developing engineering judgment in undergraduate students is the complexity they will face in professional practice, engineering educators often considerably reduce the complexity of the problems students face (with learning engineering judgement or with engineering judgment in their undergraduate education?). Student work intended to train engineering judgment often prescribes goals and objectives, and demands a one-time decision, product, or solution that faculty or instructors evaluate. The evaluation process might not contain formal methods for foregrounding feedback from experience or reflecting on how the problem or decision emerges; thus, the loop from decision to upstream cognitive processes might not be closed. Consequently, in this paper, our exploration of engineering judgment is guided by the following questions: How have investigators researchers? defined engineering judgment? What are the potential limitations of existing definitions? How can existing definitions be expanded upon? What cognitive processes do students engage to make engineering judgments? How do communication tasks shape students’ engineering judgments? In what ways does engineer identity production shape students’ engineering judgments? How might a definition of engineering judgement suggest areas for improving undergraduate education? 

National agencies throughout Australia and the United States (U.S.) have called for broadened participation in engineering, including participation by individuals with disabilities. However, studies demonstrate that students with disabilities are not effectively supported by university systems and cultures. This lack of support can shape how students form professional identities as they move through school and into careers. To better understand these experiences and create a more inclusive environment in engineering, we conducted a constructivist grounded theory exploration of professional identity formation in students who identify as having a disability as they study civil engineering and experience their first year of work. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 24 undergraduate civil engineering students across the U.S. and analysed them using grounded theory techniques. Navigating sociocultural expectations of disability emerged as one key theme, consisting of three strategy types: (1) neutrally satisfying expectations, (2) challenging expectations, and (3) aligning with expectations. Regardless of strategy, all participants navigated sociocultural expectations related to their studies and their disabilities. This theme highlights the ways sociocultural influences impact students’ navigation through their undergraduate civil engineering careers. These findings can be used to examine cultural barriers faced by students with disabilities to enhance their inclusion in engineering. 

Capstone design courses, an established component of undergraduate engineering curricula, offer students the opportunity to synthesize their prior engineering coursework and apply professional and technical skills towards projects with practical application. During this unique experience, capstone faculty enable mentored exploration, coaching students to navigate the design process to complete complex and open-ended projects. However, each capstone scope of work requires project specific knowledge and skills that capstone students need to independently research and comprehend. Findings from our study of recent graduates during their first year on the job suggest that self-directed learning isn’t just occurring in the capstone experience, but it is also an essential skill in professional workplaces. In this paper we share data regarding participants’ experiences relying on self-directed learning while working on their capstone projects and later in post-graduation environments. We consider the ways that capstone design educators can design course content and mentor students to help promote this critical skill and conclude by offering recommendations. 

Substantial research over the past few decades has documented the challenges women experience both as students in engineering programs and as professionals in engineering workplaces. Few studies, however, have followed women from one context to the other to explore the ways in which school experiences, and particularly capstone experiences designed explicitly to facilitate this transition, do and do not prepare women for their work as practicing engineers. To address this gap, we draw on data from a larger multi-institution study to address the question, “How do women engineers experience the transition from school to work?” The sample for this study includes 23 participants from four different universities (three mechanical engineering programs and one engineering science program). All participants identified as “female” on a screen questionnaire that included options for transgender and gender-nonconforming, as well as an option to skip the question. The data set includes interviews with the participants conducted at the end of their capstone design course, responses to open-ended questions sent each week during their first 12 weeks of work, and interviews conducted after their first three months of work. The capstone interviews explored participants’ experiences in their capstone design course, including project role, significant challenges and accomplishments, and perceived learning, as well as their plans for and expectations of their post-graduation work. The weekly open-ended questions asked participants to describe their most significant challenge over the past week and to explain how they addressed the challenge. Finally, the three-month interviews explored participants’ work experiences, including significant challenges as well as similarities and differences between capstone experiences and work, along with their evolving definitions of engineering. To answer the research question, we will employ thematic analysis to first identify emergent codes from the data set and subsequently synthesize those codes into themes. Preliminary review of the data suggests several potential themes that include overt experiences of gender discrimination, perceptions of (lack of) belonging or competence, and cultural shifts that may not have been effectively addresses in participants’ capstone courses or broader experiences. 

Context: Within higher education, reports show that approximately 6% of Australian college students and 13% of U.S. college students have identified as having a disability to their institution of higher education. Findings from research in K-12 education report that students with disabilities often leave secondary school with lower college aspirations and are discouraged from taking engineering-related courses. Those who do enrol are often not supported effectively and must navigate physical, cultural, and bureaucratic university systems in order to access resources necessary for success in school and work. This lack of support is problematic as cognitive, developmental, mental health, and physical disabilities can markedly shape the ways in which students perceive and experience school, form professional identities, and move into the engineering workforce. However, little work has explored professional identity development within this population, specifically within a single engineering discipline such as civil engineering. Purpose: To move beyond tolerance and actively embrace students with diverse perspectives in engineering higher education, the purpose of this study is to understand the ways in which undergraduate students who experience disability form professional identities as civil engineers. Approach: Drawing on the sensitizing concepts of identity saliency, intersectionality, and social identity theory, we utilize Constructivist Grounded Theory (GT) to explore the influences of and interactions among students' disability and professional identities within civil engineering. Semi-structured interviews, each lasting approximately 90 minutes, were conducted with undergraduate civil engineering students who identified as having a disability. Here, we present our findings from the initial and focused coding phases of our GT analysis. Results: Our analyses revealed two themes warranting further exploration: 1) varying levels of disability identity saliency in relation to the development of a professional identity; and 2) conflicting colloquial and individual conceptualizations of disability. Overall, it has been observed that students' experiences with and perceptions of these themes tend to vary based on characteristics of an experienced disability. Conclusions: Students with disabilities experience college - and form professional identities - in a variety of ways. While further research is required to delineate how disability shapes college students' professional identities and vice versa, gaining an understanding of student experiences can yield insights to help us create educational spaces that better allow students with disabilities to flourish in engineering and make engineering education more inclusive. 

his project is supported by an NSF BPE grant. Career choices, such as engineering, are influenced by a number of factors including personal interest, ability, competence beliefs, prior work-related experience, and financial and social supports. However, financial and social support, a particularly significant factor for rural students’ career decisions, is often overlooked in the literature exploring career choice. Moreover, little work has explored how communities serve as key influencers for supporting or promoting engineering as a career choice. Therefore, the goal of this study is to explore the ways in which communities provide support to students deciding to pursue engineering as a college major. To better understand how students from selected rural area high schools choose engineering as a major, we conducted focus group discussions consisting of 4-6 students each from selected schools to talk collectively about their high school experiences and their choice to major in engineering. Choosing focus group participants from different schools enabled us to elicit tacit perceptions and beliefs that may not be evident when students from the same community talk with one another. That is, as students share their experiences across schools, they may recognize differences in their experiences that, though otherwise unconscious or unacknowledged, proved significant in their choice of college and major. We expect that certain community programs and the individuals involved will have some influence on students’ decisions to study engineering at [University Name]. We anticipate that the results will yield two key outcomes: 1. A holistic understanding of the communities that effectively support and encourage engineering major choice for rural students. 2. Locally driven, contextually relevant recommendations for policies and programs that would better enable economically disadvantaged, rural schools in southwestern Virginia to support engineering as a career choice for high school students. By understanding the ways some economically-disadvantaged rural communities support engineering as a career choice and linking a broad spectrum of rural communities together around this issue, this project will broaden participation in engineering by increasing support for students from these areas. By shifting our focus from students to communities, this research broadens our understanding of career choice by capturing the perspectives of community members (including not only school personnel, but also community leaders, students’ families, business owners and others) who often play a key role in students’ decisions, particularly in rural communities. Our research will bring these voices into the conversation to help scholars learn from and respond to these essential community perspectives. In doing so, we will provide a more nuanced model of engineering career choice that can then be explored in other rural contexts. This work thus contributes to the research on career choice, rural education, and engineering education. © 2018 American Society for Engineering Education