Collaborative Research: Research Initiation: Factors Affecting Underrepresented Minority Student Success and Pathways to Engineering Careers at Majority and Minority Institutions

合作研究：研究启动：影响少数族裔学生成功的因素以及在多数和少数族裔院校的工程职业道路

• 批准号: 1640488
• 负责人: Aaron Adams
• 金额: $ 2.64万
• 依托单位: Alabama A&M University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-10-01 至 2018-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1640488&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Initiation; Factors; Affecting

This project is motivated by the need to develop practical strategies for broadening the participation of African American students in engineering. While inadequate college preparation is a contributing factor in the low enrollment and poor retention and graduation rates among underrepresented students in engineering programs, there is evidence that professional persistence is directly linked to identity development and social and academic interactions. For students from underrepresented groups in STEM at both Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs), it is generally recognized that social capital in the form of familial, peer and mentor support is critical to persistence in their major field of study. However, the role that embedded networks within student groups in general and minority engineering affinity groups in particular play in engineering students' identity formation and academic success is not well understood. It is also not clear how other factors including institutional support and the attitudes and beliefs of faculty and staff toward underrepresented minority students affect the ability of these students to integrate into the social and academic systems at their institutions and how these factors influence the formation and development of their identities as engineers. The influence of these factors will be investigated in this project. The insight gained into the factors affecting the social and academic survival of students at PWIs and HBCUs from the psychological and anthropological perspective proposed will potentially lead to new approaches and pathways to broadening participation and improving the success of underrepresented minority students in engineering.The central objective of this interdisciplinary, interinstitutional research initiation project is to conduct a comparative study of the factors affecting the success and pathways to engineering careers of underrepresented minority students at the University of Toledo (a Predominantly White Institution (PWI)) and Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University (a Historically Black University). Specifically, the comparative investigation will focus on three areas: 1. The attitudes and beliefs of faculty and staff toward underrepresented students and how these attitudes influence their classroom, and advising interactions and expectations, and the impact they have on the students' sense of belonging and academic success; 2. The existing institutional support mechanisms at both institutions and students' perceptions of their efficacy and the role they perceive these mechanisms play in their academic success; and 3. The influence of student organizations - specifically underrepresented Minority engineering affinity groups and the embedded networks therein on the social and academic integration of African American students at the two types of institutions. The study will be embedded in the existing literature on faculty/teacher expectations of their students, the dual process model of attitude-to-behavior processes, and achievement goal motivation theory to examine faculty implicit attitudes, students perceptions of and feelings about the institution and program, and their academic and social outcomes. Multiple sources and multiple methodologies will be used to capture the experiences of engineering students in PWI and HBCU universities, including focus-group interviews, structured and open- ended surveys, social network analysis, as well as the Implicit Association Test (IAT). The IAT will be used to assess biases that faculty may be unwilling to explicitly express because of normative pressure or because they are repressed as they conflict with an egalitarian self-image. The IAT, which uses response competition designed to measure attitudes indirectly, has been widely applied to study implicit biases against a variety of outgroups (e.g., race and gender), but has not previously been applied in the engineering education context. The results will be used to identify areas where existing practices might be improved, and to inform the design of programs and intervention strategies to improve the success of underrepresented students in engineering at both types of institutions.

该项目的动机是需要制定实用策略以扩大非裔美国学生对工程的参与。虽然大学准备不足是工程项目学生入学率低、保留率和毕业率低的一个因素，但有证据表明，职业坚持与身份发展以及社会和学术互动直接相关。对于历史悠久的黑人学院和大学 (HBCU) 和以白人为主的机构 (PWI) 中 STEM 中代表性不足群体的学生来说，人们普遍认为，家庭、同伴和导师支持形式的社会资本对于坚持其主要学习领域至关重要。然而，嵌入网络在学生群体中，尤其是少数工程亲和群体中，在工程学生的身份形成和学业成功方面所发挥的作用尚不清楚。目前还不清楚其他因素，包括机构支持以及教职员工对代表性不足的少数族裔学生的态度和信念，如何影响这些学生融入所在机构的社会和学术体系的能力，以及这些因素如何影响他们工程师身份的形成和发展。本项目将研究这些因素的影响。从心理学和人类学的角度深入了解影响 PWI 和 HBCU 学生社会和学术生存的因素，可能会带来新的方法和途径，以扩大参与和提高工程领域代表性不足的少数族裔学生的成功。这个跨学科、跨机构研究启动项目的中心目标是对影响工程职业成功的因素和途径进行比较研究 托莱多大学（一所以白人为主的大学 (PWI)）和阿拉巴马农业机械大学（一所历史悠久的黑人大学）的少数民族学生人数不足。具体来说，比较调查将集中在三个领域： 1. 教职员工对代表性不足的学生的态度和信念，以及这些态度如何影响他们的课堂、建议互动和期望，以及它们对学生归属感和学业成功的影响； 2. 院校现有的机构支持机制以及学生对其功效的看法以及他们认为这些机制在学业成功中所发挥的作用； 3. 学生组织的影响——特别是代表性不足的少数族裔工程亲和团体及其嵌入的网络对两类机构中非裔美国学生的社会和学术融合的影响。该研究将嵌入关于教师/教师对学生的期望、态度到行为过程的双重过程模型以及成就目标动机理论的现有文献中，以检验教师的内隐态度、学生对机构和项目的看法和感受，以及他们的学术和社会成果。将使用多种来源和多种方法来获取 PWI 和 HBCU 大学工程专业学生的经验，包括焦点小组访谈、结构化和开放式调查、社交网络分析以及内隐关联测试 (IAT)。 IAT 将用于评估教师可能因规范压力或因与平等主义自我形象相冲突而受到压抑而不愿明确表达的偏见。 IAT 使用反应竞赛来间接衡量态度，已被广泛应用于研究针对各种外群体（例如种族和性别）的隐性偏见，但之前尚未应用于工程教育背景。研究结果将用于确定现有实践可能需要改进的领域，并为项目设计和干预策略提供信息，以提高两类院校工程领域代表性不足的学生的成功率。