Collaborative Research: Understanding Engineering Pathways and their Impact on Community and Identity

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The first year of an engineering program is a critical time period for undergraduate students who are evaluating whether or not they should continue in engineering. As a result, numerous first-year programs, courses, and experiences exist, with new ones created each year. While first-year engineering education is heavily dependent on the history, design, and political structure of the host institution, it remains important to use research results to inform the creation and alteration of the first-year engineering courses, programs, and experiences. Recent research investigations have generated knowledge of the differences in course structure and content if first-year engineering courses. However, faculty and administrators designing first-year engineering education commonly ask questions that are not addressed by current literature, such as "Is it better for students to have a common first-year experience or one that is discipline specific?" or "Should transfer students have a different course than freshmen?" While it is likely that neither is better or worse, there are differences that must be investigated so faculty and administrators can make informed decisions regarding changes to first-year engineering education to enhance the student experience for all. This study intends to clarify how first-year engineering structure (e.g., common engineering, discipline specific), content (e.g., design, problem solving, academic success), and timing (e.g., one or two semesters) help or hinder students pursuing a variety of engineering pathways.Through a three-phase exploratory qualitative case study employing individual interviews and focus groups, this study attempts to answer the research question: how do students who are pursuing engineering degrees through pathways that vary with respect to first-year engineering structure, content, and timing describe their experience participating in engineering communities of practice and their emerging engineering identities? Through the community of practice framework, this research determines what communities of practice are formed during first-year engineering and their relation to engineering identity in diverse first-year engineering experiences. The researchers are evaluating the differences in student development through the various experiences, focusing on the impacts of structure, content, and timing. Finally, the study investigates the alignment between institutional goals and the student experience. This project has four goals: 1) To understand the first-year engineering experience and the effects of that experience on students' engineering identity development; 2) To develop recommendations for promoting engineering communities of practice in first-year programs and courses; 3) To further the field's understanding of early engineer formation through triangulated data points; and 4) To develop design strategies for meeting institution-specific first-year engineering development goals. These goals have substantial positive impact on engineering education because they ensure that changes made in first-year engineering are beneficial and help ensure the success of first-year engineering students. Related to intellectual merit, this research parses out how first-year engineering structure, content, and timing help or hinder students' communities of practice and engineering identities to provide concrete evidence for methods that effectively support or oppose students' development and retention in the major.