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

该项目的动机是需要制定切实可行的战略，扩大非裔美国学生对工程学的参与。尽管大学准备不足是工程类专业招生人数少、留校率和毕业率低的原因之一，但有证据表明，专业坚持性与身份发展以及社会和学术互动有直接联系。对于在历史上黑人学院和大学(HBCU)和以白人为主的机构(PWI)STEM中代表性不足的群体的学生来说，人们普遍认识到，以家庭、同伴和导师支持的形式的社会资本对于他们的专业领域的坚持不懈至关重要。然而，嵌入到学生群体中的网络，特别是少数工程学亲缘群体在工科学生身份形成和学业成功中所起的作用还没有被很好地理解。目前也不清楚其他因素，包括机构支持和教职员工对代表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系统的能力，以及这些因素如何影响他们作为工程师的身份的形成和发展。这些因素的影响将在本项目中进行调查。从心理学和人类学的角度对影响PWI和HBCU学生社会和学术生存的因素进行的洞察可能会导致新的方法和途径，以扩大参与并提高未被充分代表的少数族裔学生在工程领域的成功。这个跨学科、跨机构的研究启动项目的中心目标是对托莱多大学(以白人为主的学院)和阿拉巴马农业和机械大学(历史上以黑人为主的大学)的未被充分代表的少数族裔学生的成功因素和通往工程事业的途径进行比较研究。具体地说，比较调查将集中在三个领域：1.教职员工对代表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，并为互动和期望提供建议，以及它们对学生的归属感和学业成功的影响；2.机构和学生对其有效性的现有制度支持机制，以及他们认为这些机制在他们的学业成功中所起的作用；3.学生组织--特别是代表不足的少数族裔工程亲缘团体及其嵌入的网络--对这两类机构的非裔美国学生的社会和学术融合的影响。这项研究将嵌入现有的关于教师/教师对学生的期望的文献中，态度-行为过程的双过程模型，以及成就目标动机理论，以检验教师的内隐态度，学生对机构和项目的感知和感受，以及他们的学术和社会结果。将使用多种来源和多种方法来获取PWI和HBCU大学工科学生的经验，包括焦点小组访谈、结构化和开放式调查、社会网络分析以及内隐联想测试(IAT)。IAT将被用来评估教师可能因为规范压力或因为与平等主义的自我形象冲突而受到压制而不愿明确表达的偏见。IAT使用反应竞争来间接测量态度，已被广泛应用于研究针对各种外部群体(如种族和性别)的内隐偏见，但以前并未被应用于工程教育背景下。研究结果将被用来确定可以改进现有做法的领域，并为项目和干预战略的设计提供信息，以提高这两类机构中代表性不足的学生的成功。

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.