Collaborative Research: Improving Performance and Retention of Engineering Graduate Students through Motivation and Identity Formation

合作研究：通过动机和身份形成提高工程研究生的表现和保留率

• 批准号: 1535254
• 负责人: Cheryl Cass
• 金额: $ 24.94万
• 依托单位: North Carolina State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-09-01 至 2020-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1535254&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Improving; Performance; Retention

This work is supported by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program. The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in the field. Investments are made in critical areas that are essential, broad and enduring: STEM learning and STEM learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. The program supports the accumulation of robust evidence to inform efforts to understand, build theory to explain, and suggest intervention and innovations to address persistent challenges in STEM interest, education, learning and participation. This ECR project intends to understand how doctoral engineering student experiences influence identity formation and motivation and therefore affect retention, persistence and productivity. While this has been widely studied at the undergraduate level, graduate-level studies are less available. Engineering is the least studied fields in graduate education, and if studied, is often combined with other STEM fields, despite unique disciplinary cultures. Engineering culture traditionally values industry-driven careers over academically-driven careers. The focus on career preparation and industry-relevant experiences can also lead to limited development of research-oriented skills and future goals by engineering students. Students coming in with limited definitions of research, particularly research in an engineering context, can experience a mismatch between their identities, their future goals and expectations for them as researchers. The proposed work could benefit engineering graduate students who may be at risk of abandoning their educational pursuits in engineering. Increasing retention of talented individuals in graduate engineering programs increases the number of individuals who can train the new graduates needed to solve the next generation of engineering problems. Unique approaches to problems solved by engineers are essential as growing global competition and increased emphasis on new technology drive the need for creative engineers. A goal of the study is to shape graduate education best practices for recruitment, retention, and training in engineering, particularly for doctoral students in engineering, but elements of this work will be transferable to other populations within graduate education. Through a mixed methods study of graduate student motivational goal setting and identity formation the following research questions will be answered: 1. What are the identity and motivation profiles of engineering doctoral students, which are based on previous academic and research experiences in STEM? 2. How does the STEM community influence identity formation and motivational goal setting processes of engineering doctoral students? 3. How do these processes related to identity formation and motivation influence engineering graduate student retention, productivity, and pursuit of doctoral level engineering careers? In the initial quantitative phase, development, administration, and analysis of a survey to assess the experiences of a nationally-representative sample of currently-enrolled engineering graduate students will be completed. Data will be analyzed using advanced clustering techniques to create attitudinal profiles that reflect graduate students' identity and motivation. To maximize the sample size, students will be recruited through engineering societies and targeted solicitations to graduate engineering programs. In the qualitative second phase up to 50 students of varying attitudinal profiles will be selected to study the influence of graduate experiences on identity development and motivational goal setting. Using a phenomenological lens, students will be interviewed about their experiences in graduate engineering education. Through the mixed-methods approach, the interactions of students' identities and motivation will be captured and how academic experiences influence these profiles will be determined. Results can be used to inform programmatic decisions in graduate programs and facilitate interventions that promote motivation and identity development.

这项工作得到了EHR核心研究(ECR)计划的支持。ECR计划强调基础STEM教育研究，以产生该领域的基础知识。在基本、广泛和持久的关键领域进行投资：STEM学习和STEM学习环境，扩大STEM的参与，以及STEM劳动力发展。该计划支持积累强有力的证据，为理解、构建解释理论和建议干预和创新提供信息，以应对STEM兴趣、教育、学习和参与方面的持续挑战。这个ECR项目旨在了解工科博士生的经历如何影响身份认同的形成和动机，从而影响保持、坚持和生产力。虽然这已经在本科生层面得到了广泛的研究，但研究生层面的研究却很少。工程学是研究生教育中研究最少的领域，如果学习，往往会与其他STEM领域结合在一起，尽管有独特的学科文化。工程文化传统上更看重工业驱动的职业，而不是学术驱动的职业。对职业准备和行业相关经验的关注也可能导致工科学生在研究技能和未来目标方面的发展受到限制。学生对研究的定义有限，特别是在工程背景下的研究，他们可能会经历身份、未来目标和对他们作为研究人员的期望之间的不匹配。拟议中的工作可能会使工程专业研究生受益，他们可能面临放弃工程专业教育的风险。工程学研究生项目留住人才的增加，增加了能够培养解决下一代工程问题所需的应届毕业生的人数。随着日益激烈的全球竞争和对新技术的日益重视推动了对创造性工程师的需求，工程师解决问题的独特方法至关重要。这项研究的一个目标是形成研究生教育招收、保留和培训工程学方面的最佳做法，特别是针对工程学博士研究生，但这项工作的要素将转移到研究生教育中的其他人群。通过对研究生动机目标设置和同一性形成的混合方法的研究，将回答以下研究问题：1.基于STEM以往的学术和研究经验，工科博士生的同一性和动机特征是什么？2.STEM社区如何影响工科博士生的同一性形成和动机目标设置过程？3.这些与认同形成和动机相关的过程如何影响工程学研究生的保持、生产力和对博士水平工程职业的追求？在最初的量化阶段，将完成一项调查的开发、管理和分析，以评估目前招收的具有全国代表性的工程学研究生的经验样本。数据将使用先进的聚类技术进行分析，以创建反映研究生身份和动机的态度档案。为了最大限度地扩大样本规模，将通过工程学会招募学生，并有针对性地招收工程专业研究生。在定性的第二阶段，我们将挑选50名不同态度的学生来研究毕业经历对自我认同发展和动机目标设定的影响。使用现象学的视角，学生将接受采访，了解他们在工程学研究生教育中的经历。通过混合方法的方法，将捕捉到学生的身份和动机之间的相互作用，并将确定学术经历如何影响这些概况。结果可以用来为研究生项目的计划决策提供信息，并促进促进动机和认同感发展的干预。