Learning from the PROSE: Exploring professional organizations' role in supporting Black engineering student success

尽管联邦政府投入了数百万美元来扩大黑人学生的参与，但黑人学生在各级工程专业的人数仍然不足。现有的研究不仅提供了完成本科工程学位障碍的证据，还揭示了积极影响优秀黑人学生学业成绩的因素。这些因素包括在校园里更加融入社会和意识到自己的种族身份；参与某些类型的校园专业组织为这两种因素的发生提供了环境。作为向PROSE（支持卓越的专业组织）学习的一部分，本研究的目的是了解学生与身份相关组织（如全国黑人工程师协会（NSBE）和组成全国泛希腊委员会（NPHC）的组织）的参与如何有助于成功完成工程课程。这个项目的重点是那些已经成功完成本科教育的人的经历，即黑人工程研究生。本研究的发现将促进我们对身份相关组织在促进工程中最不具代表性的群体之一的成功方面所起的独特作用的理解。明确关注毕业于一系列机构的黑人工程研究生，使我们能够深入探索不同背景下的相似动态。通过扩展，这将使我们能够制定一套强大的战略，以支持各级教育的少数民族学生，加强与他们身份的各个方面保持一致的专业组织的努力，并阐明通往教授的途径。尽管黑人约占美国人口的13%，是美国增长最快的人口之一，但在2015-2016学年，黑人在本科、硕士和博士学位获得者中所占比例不到4.4%。这项工作将向黑人工程研究生学习，他们已经成功地驾驭了工程环境，并自主选择继续在研究生工程项目中学习。利用课外支持和社区文化财富模型作为理论基础，这个定性和基于视频的研究项目将调查本科生参与身份相关组织如何有助于他们成功地驾驭工程课程。更具体地说，该项目旨在研究专业组织提供关键的专业和社会心理支持的机制，这些支持有助于黑人工程专业学生的发展和成功，采用三阶段方法：进行系统的文献综述，进行现象学访谈，探索新的传播手段。虽然现有的研究通常是用现象学的方法来调查这些经历，但这项研究采取了一种全面和反思的观点，这种观点只有在经历结束后才能获得。此外，依靠定性和基于视频的混合方法为以传统和新颖的方式传播研究成果提供了基础。这项研究将从黑人工程专业学生的角度揭示获得网络和支持系统的关键方面，这些学生表现出了坚持不懈的精神，同时强调了现有校园项目之间的合作机会，这些项目可以促进从孤立的方法向支持学生成功的转变。本研究还将通过初步调查同时参与多个与身份相关的专业组织的重要性来发展知识。从这项调查中得出的见解可能会对其他未被充分代表的群体（例如，拉丁裔，LGBTQ，转学生等）产生影响。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Despite millions of federal investments to broaden participation, Black students continue to be underrepresented at all levels of engineering. Existing research not only provides evidence of the barriers to undergraduate engineering degree completion, it also reveals factors that positively influence the academic outcomes of high-achieving Black students. Factors like being more socially integrated on campus and being conscious of one's racial identity are among them; and involvement in certain types of professional organizations on campus provide a context for both of these factors to occur. As part of Learning from the PROSE (Professional Organizations Supporting Excellence), the aim of this study is to understand how students' engagement with identity-related organizations - like the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) and those that makeup the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC)- contributes to the successful completion of engineering programs. This project is focusing on the experiences of those who have already successfully completed their undergraduate education, namely Black graduate engineering students. The findings from this study will advance our understanding of the unique role identity-related organizations play in promoting the success of one of the least represented groups in engineering. The explicit focus on Black engineering graduate students who have graduated from a range of institutions allows us to deeply explore similar dynamics in different contexts. By extension, this will allows us to develop a robust set of strategies for supporting minority students at all levels of education, reinforce the efforts of professional organizations that align with various dimensions of their identity, and shed light on pathways to the professoriate.Although Black people represent approximately 13% of the U.S. population and are one of the fastest growing demographics in the nation, they made up less than 4.4% of engineering degree recipients at the undergraduate, Master's and doctoral levels during the 2015-2016 academic year. This work will learn from Black engineering graduate students that have successfully navigated engineering environments and self-selected to continue study in a graduate engineering program. Using the Model of Co-Curricular Support and Community Cultural Wealth as theoretical underpinnings, this qualitative and video-based research project will investigate how engagement in identify-related organizations as undergraduate students contributed to the successful navigation of their engineering programs. More specifically, this project aims to investigate the mechanisms by which professional organizations provide the critical professional and psychosocial support that contribute to the development and success of Black engineering students using a three-phase approach: performing a systematic literature review, conducting phenomenological interviews, and exploring novel means of dissemination. Although existing research typically investigates such experiences while being enrolled in undergraduate engineering programs, using a phenomenological approach, this study takes a comprehensive and reflective view that can only be obtained after the experience is over. Moreover, relying on a mixture of qualitative and video-based methods provides the basis for disseminating the research findings in traditional and novel ways. This study will uncover critical aspects of access to networks and support systems from the perspective of Black engineering students that have demonstrated persistence while highlighting partnership opportunities among existing on-campus programs that could promote a shift away from the siloed approaches to supporting student success. This study will also develop knowledge by serving as an initial investigation into the significance of engaging in multiple identity-related professional organizations simultaneously. Insights emerging from this investigation will likely have implications for other underrepresented groups (e.g., Latinx, LGBTQ, transfer students, etc).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.