Search for: All records

Current diversity and sexual harassment trainings often take an informative approach that results in a gap between theoretical knowledge and practical resolutions of ethical dilemmas. Available research suggests that diversity training programs often elicit the greatest amount of change among people with a minority identity and can result in hostility from majority group members. To better prepare all engineering students for modern-day organizations, it’s imperative that universities develop effective approaches at the student level to mitigate these discrepancies. We propose that our novel ethics-based training will elicit positive diversity-related outcomes overall. We inductively explore the differential impact of diversity training across majority and minority identities. Longitudinal quantitative data were collected to examine changes in participant attitudes and behaviors in response to the diversity module. Undergraduate engineering students enrolled in an introductory engineering ethics course at a large Southwestern university were presented with a week-long teaching module on diversity. Survey results were evaluated to measure differences in effectiveness among majority and minority students. The diversity training successfully decreased levels of sexism, acceptance of sexual harassment myths, and increased intentions to confront discrimination. Differences in outcome variables between majority and minority members were found with regard to political orientation, race, and physical and mental disability status. Overall, this study presents a promising new avenue for diversity training scholarship. Specifically, we find that an ethics-based approach to diversity training may be particularly effective for majority group students. 

This paper describes the use of a novel research platform called SenseMaker® to collect and analyze real-time data in the form of participants’ qualitative accounts of COVID-19 along with online learning experiences and participants’ own quantitative assessments of those experiences. Participants were faculty, students, and staff in the College of Engineering at the University of Georgia during Spring 2020. Results from two waves of data collection informed real-time recommendations to College faculty and administration to address COVID-19-related challenges. Results also facilitated faculty development programming to build instructor communities of learning and support in response to the University’s transition to online learning.