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

这项工作得到了EHR核心研究（ECR）项目的支持。ECR项目强调在该领域产生基础知识的基础STEM教育研究。投资在至关重要、广泛和持久的关键领域：STEM学习和STEM学习环境，扩大STEM参与，以及STEM劳动力发展。该项目支持积累有力的证据，为理解、构建理论进行解释提供信息，并提出干预和创新建议，以应对STEM兴趣、教育、学习和参与方面的持续挑战。本ECR项目旨在了解博士生的经历如何影响身份形成和动机，从而影响留任、坚持和生产力。虽然这在本科阶段得到了广泛的研究，但研究生阶段的研究却很少。工程是研究生教育中研究最少的领域，尽管有独特的学科文化，但如果研究，通常会与其他STEM领域相结合。传统上，工程文化更看重行业驱动型职业，而不是学术驱动型职业。对职业准备和行业相关经验的关注也可能导致工程专业学生的研究型技能和未来目标的发展受到限制。学生们对研究的定义有限，特别是在工程领域的研究，他们的身份、未来目标和对他们作为研究人员的期望之间可能会出现不匹配。这项提议的工作可能会使那些可能会放弃他们在工程方面的教育追求的工程研究生受益。在研究生工程项目中增加对人才的保留，增加了能够培养解决下一代工程问题所需的新毕业生的个人数量。工程师解决问题的独特方法是必不可少的，因为日益增长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。这项研究的一个目标是塑造研究生教育的最佳实践，以招聘、保留和培训工程，特别是工程博士生，但这项工作的要素将转移到研究生教育的其他人群。通过对研究生动机目标设定与认同形成的混合方法研究，将回答以下研究问题：1。基于以前在STEM领域的学术和研究经验，工程博士生的身份和动机是什么？2. STEM社区如何影响工程博士生的身份形成和动机目标设定过程？3. 这些与身份形成和动机相关的过程如何影响工程研究生的保留率、生产力和对博士级工程职业的追求？在最初的定量阶段，将完成一项调查的开发、管理和分析，以评估具有全国代表性的当前入学工程研究生样本的经验。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概况。为了最大限度地扩大样本量，将通过工程学会和有针对性的征集来招募学生，以便毕业于工程项目。在定性的第二阶段，将选择多达50名不同态度概况的学生来研究研究生经历对身份发展和动机目标设定的影响。使用现象学的镜头，学生将被采访关于他们在研究生工程教育的经验。通过混合方法的方法，学生的身份和动机之间的相互作用将被捕获，学术经历如何影响这些档案将被确定。研究结果可用于为研究生课程的规划决策提供信息，并促进促进动机和身份发展的干预措施。

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.