Collaborative Research: "I AM an engineer!" Assessing Engineering Identity, Its Development, and Its Contribution to Retention among Engineering College Students

这个改进本科STEM教育（IUSE）项目在得克萨斯州A M大学系统和旧自治领大学进行，将有助于通过研究工程学院学生在前两年学习中工程身份的发展来提高学生在工程方面的保留率。必须在全国范围内提高工程专业学生的保留率。了解工程身份与学生保留相关的程度，产生工程身份和相关结构的有效和可靠的量化措施，并检查学生参与专业发展活动在多大程度上影响了大学前两年工程身份的变化，这将是该项目的贡献，每个工程项目都可以应用。作为学生学习计划的一部分，这项研究特别有助于学生保留和工程身份的文献，也有很大的潜力来产生和激励未来的工程身份研究。 该项目的目标是：验证工程身份的措施;检查工程身份在大学的前两年变化的程度;评估在何种程度上从事专业发展活动与工程身份有关;并检查工程身份和工程专业学生之间的联系。该项目将建立一个简洁，有效和可靠的工程身份的措施，这将使大规模的评估，从而促进未来的研究和干预有关的身份和工程专业学生之间的保留。 该项目的研究结果将告知更广泛的文献保留大学生在科学，技术，工程和数学。此外，研究结果将有影响的职业身份和专业发展的文献，特别是有关入职前阶段的职业道路。

This Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) project conducted at the Texas A&M University System and Old Dominion University will help to improve retention of students in engineering by studying the development of engineering identity among engineering college students in their first two years of study. Engineering student retention must be improved in engineering programs across the country. Understanding the extent to which engineering identity is related to student retention, producing valid and reliable quantitative measures of engineering identity and related constructs, and examining the extent to which student participation in professional development activities influence changes in engineering identity during the first two years of college will be a contribution of this project that every engineering program can apply.As an Exploration project in the Engaged Student Learning program, this research contributes specifically to the body of literature on student retention and engineering identity and also has substantial potential to generate and to inspire future research in engineering identity. The project objectives are to: validate a measure of engineering identity; examine the extent to which engineering identity changes during the first two years of college; assess the extent to which engaging in professional development activities is related to engineering identity; and examine links between engineering identity and retention among engineering students. This project will establish a concise, valid, and reliable measure of engineering identity that will enable large-scale assessment, thereby facilitating future research and interventions concerning identity and retention among engineering students. The findings of this project will inform the broader literature on the retention of college students in science, technology, engineering and math. Additionally, the research findings will have implications for the career identity and professional development literatures, especially pertaining to the pre-entry phase of the career pathway.