Research Initiation: Assessing the Effectiveness of the Professional Formation of Engineering Students at The College of New Jersey

创造和留住一支强大的高技能工程师队伍对于维持和改善美国和全球经济非常重要，美国和全球经济越来越依赖于来自工程领域的技术创新。同样重要的是，在这群创新的从业人员中发展高度的道德和专业标准。新泽西大学工程学院（TCNJ）制定了一个平衡良好的文科核心课程，将其与坚实而有力的工程课程序列相结合，承诺：(1)提高工程专业学生的保留率；(2)在整个四年的工程课程中灌输高度的道德和专业标准；(3)对校友：A)激励并强烈鼓励他们提高他们的工程知识和技能，b)努力设定具有挑战性的专业目标并及时实现它们。这一课程模式的设计者与社会学系的教师们联合起来，构建了必要的调查工具和程序，以全面检查这一有前途的模式所包含的不同干预和强化措施的有效性程度和时机。这些评估的结果将使这个多学科研究小组能够更深入地了解该课程的进一步校准，以获得最佳结果。进行这项为期两年的研究所使用的技术、调查工具和程序，以及结果摘要，将在国家一级提供，以供可能采用、审查类似模型和未来合作之用。新泽西大学工程学院（TCNJ）与社会学系的教师密切合作，发起了一项研究项目，评估文科核心课程与强大的垂直工程专业序列相结合对工程专业学生专业形成的有效性。在这项研究中，多学科团队考察了一系列课程和课外教育干预的影响，如工程特定的道德案例研究、专业执照课程、通过正式指导计划与校友的互动、文科课程、解决开放式设计问题、实习和/或本科生研究经历。该项目包括两个阶段：(1)在一年级使用定性方法根据现有测量方法创建工具，并开发新的测量方法；(2)在二年级进行试点研究，旨在验证所创建的工具。在这些阶段进行形成性评价，可以根据对所收集数据的早期分析，修改措施和时间安排，并可能影响交付干预措施。总结性评价提供了工具的有效性，然后可以将其应用于更大的人口。这项初步研究的目的是创建和验证可用于评估这一有前途的模型的有效性的工具。这些工具可用于未来的研究计划，以评估影响工程专业学生专业发展的各种因素的有效性。另一个感兴趣的领域集中在专业形成如何受到人口因素的影响，以及专业形成如何与坚持和毕业后的成功相关。计划中的研究项目的结果为专业形成和个人特征之间的联系提供了深入的见解，这些特征在其他地方被证明可以预测由于性别、种族/民族和社会经济地位而代表性不足的人群的坚持和毕业后的成功。本研究中开发的评估工具可以更好地了解这些群体中的专业形成，从而有可能导致具体的干预措施，加强这些特殊人群的专业认同。将结果传播到工程教育界，将结果的影响传播到全国。

Creating and retaining a robust workforce of highly-skilled engineers is very important for sustaining and improving the United States and global economies, which are increasingly reliant on technical innovation that comes from the field of engineering. Equally important is the development of highly ethical and professional standards within this group of innovative practitioners. The School of Engineering at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) has formulated a well-balanced liberal arts core integrated with a solid and robust engineering curricular sequence that promises to: (1) improve the retention of engineering students, (2) instill highly ethical and professional standards throughout the four years of the engineering curriculum, and (3) for alumni: a) inspire and strongly encourage them to enhance their engineering knowledge and skills, and b) strive for setting challenging professional goals and achieving them in a timely manner. The architects of this curriculum model have joined forces with faculty from the Department of Sociology to construct the necessary surveying tools and procedures for a comprehensive examination of the degree of effectiveness and the timing of the different interventions and reinforcements built into this promising model. The findings from these evaluations would enable this multi-disciplinary research team to develop a much deeper understanding for further calibration of this curriculum for optimal results. The techniques, surveying tools, and procedures used for conducting this two-year study, along with a summary of the results, will be made available at the national level for potential adoption, examination of similar models, and future collaborations.The School of Engineering at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ), in close collaboration with faculty from the Department of Sociology, has initiated a research program that assesses the effectiveness of a liberal arts core program combined with a strong vertical engineering professional sequence on the professional formation of engineering students. In this study, the multi-disciplinary team examines the influence of a number of curricular and extracurricular education interventions such as engineering-specific ethics case studies, lessons on professional licensure, interaction with alumni through a formal mentoring program, liberal arts coursework, solving open-ended design problems, internships, and/or undergraduate research experiences. The project consists of two phases: (1) creation of the instruments based on existing measures and development of new measures using qualitative methods in Year 1, and (2) pilot studies in Year 2 that are designed to validate the created instruments. Formative evaluation during these phases allows for modification of measures and timing, and may influence the delivery interventions, based on early analysis of data collected. Summative evaluation provides the validity of the instruments that can then be applied to larger populations. The objective of this initial study is to create and validate instruments that can be used to assess the effectiveness of this promising model. The instruments may be used in future research programs to evaluate the effectiveness of various factors postulated to influence professional development in engineering students. An additional area of interest focuses on how professional formation is influenced by demographic factors, and how professional formation is related to persistence and post-graduation success. Results of the planned research program provides insight into the connection between professional formation and individual characteristics that have been demonstrated elsewhere to predict persistence and post-graduation success in populations underrepresented due to gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. The assessment instruments developed in this study enable professional formation within these cohorts to be better understood, potentially leading to specific interventions that strengthen professional identity for these special populations. Dissemination of the results to the engineering education community will spread the impact of the results nationally.