A Multi-Institution Comparison of Students’ Development of an Identity as an Engineer
A Multi-Institution Comparison of Students’ Development of an Identity as an Engineer
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学生工程师身份发展的多机构比较
DOI：
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发表时间：
2011
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通讯作者：
Rachel A. Louis
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作者：
H. Matusovich;Brock E. Barry;Kerry Meyers;Rachel A. Louis
工程身份研究的对象是传统工程专业的学生和军事学院的学生。由于之前的许多研究都应用了多重身份作为理论框架，当前的研究也应用了这种方法来实现了解这两个群体中学生之间的共性和差异的目标。这项研究旨在填补集体知识中关于促进学生职业认同发展的因素的空白，更具体地说是对工程学的认同。我们假设与军事惯例相关的学生在其所选学术专业中比与这些惯例无关的学生有更强的职业认同。这项工作的结果可用于指导工程教育的行政/课程结构，以支持学生对工程的认同，这被认为可以增加学生毕业后继续接受教育和专业的可能性。在三所大学进行了半结构化访谈，以更好地了解学生如何发展他们的职业身份。具体来说，学生参与者来自即将完成学位的各个级别，来自两个工程系（土木和机械）以及历史系以供参考。两所大学作为主要研究基地；第一所是美国东北部的军事大学，第二所是中西部地区的私立大学。第三所大学是美国东南部的一所大型公立大学，作为该研究的扩展。我们的研究结果表明，学生的身份发展存在一些明显的相似点和差异。作为家庭成员或地理区域的认同似乎是普遍的，而且工程专业的学生比历史系的学生有更独特的职业认同。一个明显的区别是学生选择高等教育机构的方法。此外，很明显，有助于共享/共同发展经验的有组织的活动对于身份发展很有用。这些初步发现引发了更多与身份发展相关的问题，可以通过观察学生随时间的发展来进一步探讨这些问题。
Engineering identity research was conducted looking at both traditional engineering students and students enrolled at a military academy. As much of the prior research has applied multiple identities as the theoretical framework, the current study also applied this approach towards its goals of understanding the commonalities and differences among students within these two groups. This research aims to fill a gap in the collective knowledge as to the factors that contribute to the development of a student’s professional identity and more specifically identification with engineering. We hypothesized that students associated with military routines would have a stronger professional identification within their chosen academic major than students not associated with these routines. The results of this work can be used to guide administrative / curricular structures for engineering education to support students’ identification with engineering, which is believed to increase a student’s likelihood for educational and professional persistence post-graduation. Semi-structured interviews were performed at three universities to gain a better understanding of how students develop their professional identities. Specifically, the student participants were from a cross-section of levels toward degree completion and were from two departments of engineering (civil and mechanical), as well as history for reference. Two universities served as the main research sites; the first a military university in the northeastern United States and the second a private university in the midwestern region. The third university was a large public university in the southeastern United States that served as an expansion of the study. The results of our study show some distinct similarities and differences in the identity development of students. Identifying as a family member or with a geographic region seemed universal, and there was a more distinct professional identity for engineering students than history students. One clear difference was the approach to how students selected their institution of higher education. Also, it was clear that organized activities that contributed to a shared / common developmental experience was useful in identity development. These initial findings spark many more questions relating to identity development, which could be further explored looking at student’s development over time.