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

研究启动：评估新泽西学院工程专业学生专业形成的有效性

• 批准号: 1544192
• 负责人: Bijan Sepahpour
• 金额: $ 15万
• 依托单位: The College of New Jersey
• 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: 2015-10-01 至 2018-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1544192&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Research; Initiation; Assessing; Effectiveness; Professional

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.

创造和保留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，这些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，在这一创新从业者群体中制定高度的道德和专业标准。工程学院在新泽西（TCNJ）的学院制定了一个平衡的文科核心与坚实和强大的工程课程序列集成，承诺：（1）提高工程专业学生的保留，（2）灌输高度道德和专业标准在整个工程课程的四年，和（3）为校友：a）启发并大力鼓励他们提高工程知识和技能，以及B）努力设定具有挑战性的专业目标并及时实现。该课程模式的建筑师与社会学系的教师联手，构建了必要的调查工具和程序，以全面检查这种有前途的模式中内置的不同干预措施和强化措施的有效性和时机。这些评估的结果将使这个多学科的研究团队能够更深入地了解这一课程，以进一步校准这一课程，从而取得最佳效果。这项为期两年的研究所采用的技术、调查工具和程序，以及沿着的结果摘要，将在国家一级提供，供潜在的采用、类似模型的检验和未来的合作。新泽西学院工程学院（TCNJ）与社会学系的教师密切合作，已经启动了一项研究计划，评估文科核心课程结合强大的垂直工程专业序列对工程专业学生专业形成的有效性。 在这项研究中，多学科团队研究了一些课程和课外教育干预措施的影响，如工程特定的道德案例研究，专业执照的经验教训，通过正式的指导计划与校友互动，文科课程，解决开放式设计问题，实习和/或本科研究经验。该项目包括两个阶段：（1）在第一年，根据现有措施制定文书，并使用定性方法制定新的措施;（2）在第二年进行试点研究，旨在验证所制定的文书。在这些阶段进行的形成性评价允许根据对收集的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，然后可以应用于更大的人群。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式的有效性的工具。这些工具可用于未来的研究计划，以评估各种因素的有效性假设影响工程专业学生的发展。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持久性和毕业后的成功有关。计划的研究计划的结果提供了深入了解专业形成和个人特征之间的联系，这些特征已在其他地方得到证明，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持久性和毕业后的成功。在这项研究中开发的评估工具，使这些群体内的专业形成得到更好的理解，可能会导致具体的干预措施，加强这些特殊人群的专业身份。向工程教育界传播结果将在全国范围内传播结果的影响。