PECASE: Learning from Small Numbers: Using personal narratives by underrepresented undergraduate students to promote institutional change in engineering education

这一工程教育研究项目试图回答为什么一些群体在工程学位课程中长期代表性不足的问题。为了解决这个问题，PI将使用叙事来了解未被充分代表的工科学生如何描述与他们的教育机构的互动，以及哪些制度因素影响坚持和成功。该项目将开发并传播基于“人物角色”和“信息”的工具，以帮助政策制定者了解机构如何发展，以更好地解决和支持未被充分代表的群体的经历。该项目的更广泛的意义和重要性将为一些群体在工程学位课程中代表性低的令人困惑和持久的项目提供新的见解。PI计划同时关注主要为白人服务的机构和少数族裔服务机构，以使用叙事方法解决关于结构性差异的问题。如果该项目成功，它将为工程学校内部的决策提供信息，也可能为其他高等教育行政级别的决策提供信息。因此，该项目对用于决策和实践的知识库具有潜在的广泛影响。

This engineering education research project seeks to answer the question of why some groups are chronically under-represented in engineering degree programs. To address this issue the PI will use narratives to understand how under-represented engineering students describe interactions with their educational institutions and what institutional factors affect persistence and success. The project will develop and then disseminate tools based on "personas" and "informance" to help policy makers learn how institutions can evolve to better address and support the experiences of under-represented groups.The broader significance and importance of this project will be to provide new insights into the perplexing and persistent program of low representation of some groups in engineering degree programs. The PI plans to focus on both primarily white institutions and also minority serving institutions to address questions on structural differences using a narrative approach. Should the project be successful, it will inform policy decisions within engineering schools and potentially at other higher education administrative level as well. The project thus has potential broad impact both on the knowledge base used to make decisions and practice.