Research Initiation: Why do students decide to get involved in co-curricular engineering projects?

工程方面的课外团队项目——如设计项目、实验作业或全国性项目竞赛或挑战——可以成为学生形成个人和专业技能和特征的关键经验。它们也可能在代表性不足的学生群体（例如妇女、少数民族、残疾人）的留校和完成学位方面发挥重要作用。虽然参与的好处已经相对确立，但学生选择参与或不参与的原因却很难理解，因为他们可能涉及范围很广，可能没有充分的信息或理性的决策基础。不了解学生的选择限制了我们解决参与障碍的能力，也限制了我们构建校园项目及其资金的能力，从而无法实现项目团队中提高多样性、提高技术和人际学习质量等成果。这项研究通过对不同类型大学的学生进行调查和更详细的访谈，对学生选择参加课外工程项目的原因产生了重要的新见解。这项研究的目的是深入了解有影响的决策因素和态度是否在人口群体中是一致的，或者是否存在独特的性别、种族、社会或社会经济相关的反应，这些反应可能反过来影响课外学生项目团队的构成。研究结果将提高对学生动机和看法的理解，包括学生在多大程度上有意识地评估做出一种选择而不是另一种选择的潜在权衡和后果。对学生的调查，辅以更深入的访谈，使用q方法论和现象学解释学生在选择加入（或离开）这些项目时的动机和看法。该研究应用完善的社会科学方法来调查工程形成中一个高度研究不足的领域。最近的调查工具——由国家科学基金会资助开发——旨在探索学生的共同和课外参与，正在被Q方法所采用。计划行为理论正被应用于分析和情境化学生的反应，并将其与影响学生参与课外工程项目的关键潜在态度、因素和过程联系起来。预计未来学生参与的预测可以基于将出现的特征反应。选择参加的学生，参加后离开的学生，以及从未决定参加课外项目的学生将被抽样。该项目汇集了一个在课外工程项目领域拥有丰富经验的团队，包括参与代表性不足、自我效能和专业形成等问题。本科生和研究生，包括那些来自工程和教学的学生，都在工程教育中接受有价值的研究训练，作为这项研究的一部分。预计研究结果可以帮助指导校园文化、结构和资金决策，以增加学生的数量和多样性，在进入STEM劳动力之前获得宝贵的课外项目经验。

Co-curricular team projects in engineering - such as design projects, experimental assignments, or national project-based competitions or challenges - can be key experiences for students in forming personal and professional skills and traits. They may also play a strong role in retention and degree completion among underrepresented student groups (for instance women, minorities, those with disabilities). While the benefits of participation are relatively well established, the reasons why students choose to participate or not in the first place are very poorly understood, as they may span a wide spectrum and may not involve fully informed or rational foundations for decision-making. Failure to understand student choices limits our ability to address barriers to participation, and to structure campus programs and their funding to achieve outcomes that include improved diversity and a higher quality of technical and interpersonal learning in project teams. This research involves generating significant new insight into why students choose to participate in co-curricular engineering projects, through use of a mixture of surveys and more detailed interviews with students in different types of universities. The research is designed to yield insight into whether influential decision-making factors and attitudes are consistent across demographic groups or if there are unique gender, ethnicity, social, or socio-economic -related responses that may in turn influence the makeup of co-curricular student project teams. The results will improve the understanding of student motivations and perceptions, including to what extent students consciously evaluate potential trade-offs and consequences of making one choice over another. The survey of students, complemented by interviews for richer depth, uses a Q-Methodology and phenomenological interpretation of student motivations and perceptions when choosing to join (or leave) such projects. The research applies well-established social science approaches to investigate a highly under-studied area in engineering formation. Recent survey tools - developed with NSF funding - designed to explore student co- and extra-curricular engagement are being adopted for the Q Methodology. The Theory of Planned Behavior is being applied to analyze and contextualize the student responses and link them to key underlying attitudes, factors, and processes that influence student participation in co-curricular engineering projects. It is anticipated that predictions of future student involvement can be made based on characteristic responses that will emerge. Students who chose to participate, students who participated and left, and students who never decided to participate in co-curricular projects will be sampled. The project brings together a team with extensive experience in the co-curricular engineering project arena, including engagement on issues of underrepresentation, self-efficacy, and professional formation. Both undergraduate and graduate students, including those from engineering and teaching, are receiving valuable research training in engineering education as part of this research. It is anticipated that the outcomes could help guide campus culture, structure, and funding decisions to enhance the number and diversity of students gaining valuable co-curricular project experience before entering the STEM workforce.