Am I Smart Enough to be an Engineer? Study of Engineering Students' Beliefs and Identities Across Institutionalized Educational Pathways

这个EHR核心研究项目涉及一个定性的，探索性的研究，将收集采访数据，以捕捉一年级工程专业学生的信念和身份方面的智能和工程。参与者将在六个不同的制度化途径中参加相同的入门工程课程。尽管做出了重大努力，以增加在工程中的代表性不足的群体的参与，那些谁获得工程本科学位仍然主要是男性，白色，和中产阶级或中上层阶级。虽然这个问题是复杂和持久的，对于学生谁是感兴趣的工程，他们对自己的“能力”的信念是至关重要的，他们的参与。这些信念与教育系统中“智力”的文化结构有关，这种文化结构往往偏向于占主导地位的群体的价值观。除了直接增加多样性的方案努力（例如，工程项目中的妇女或少数民族），提供多种工程学位课程的入门途径是一种广泛和制度化的结构，通常被认为是招聘和留住不同的个人。这些途径通常旨在通过增加选择（例如，介绍性课程的荣誉或住宿版本），可获得性和可负担性（例如，社区学院或地区校园的入门课程），和支持（例如，另一个数学起点）。在实施时，这些途径可能在结构上类似于教育跟踪;具有较高学术成就的学生最终进入更有声望的途径。之前在K-12背景下的研究得出的结论是，这种教育跟踪使社会不公平现象永久化;参加声望较低的课程的学生往往对自己的能力抱有较低的教育愿望和较低的积极信念。因此，本研究旨在探讨如何多途径旨在增加工程多样性可能无法实现这一预期的目标，由于对学生的信仰和身份的无意影响。通过反复的定性分析，研究人员将调查学生的信仰和身份是否以及如何作为他们参与给定途径的函数而变化。了解这些途径的学生的信念和身份的动态有可能转化为当地和国家的政策建议，以解决使用多种途径招收学生，促进他们在engineering.The研究的坚持解决两个研究问题：1）在不同的教育途径的学生认为智力和工程？2)这些学生如何表达他们与聪明和工程师相关的个人身份？基于信仰和身份的理论，研究人员将从六个不同的途径招募学生，这些途径具有不同程度的竞争入口，地理位置，班级规模和招生：1）荣誉课程; 2）生活学习或住宿课程; 3）一般工程招生课程; 4）替代数学起点课程，5）区域校园课程;以及6）社区学院途径。来自所有六个途径的学生将提供调查数据，并将招募30名学生进行深入访谈，在研究期间进行三次。研究人员将考虑每个人的经验对数据进行编码，并在每个通路内和通路间的数据中搜索模式，以确定通路间是否存在变异。这项研究将带来那些追求工程学位的人的声音，包括那些在最初追求工程学位时可能不会被保留的人。这项工作可能揭示了多种途径的一些隐藏的局限性，以使美国的工程专业毕业生多样化。此外，通过系统和批判性地审视学生的信仰和身份之间的潜在问题差异，研究贡献可能会推动工程教育领域的发展。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This EHR Core Research project involves a qualitative, exploratory study that will collect interview data to capture the beliefs and identities of first-year engineering students with respect to intelligence and engineering. Participants will be enrolled in the same introductory engineering courses across six distinct institutionalized pathways. Despite significant efforts to increase the participation of underrepresented groups in engineering, those who earn engineering undergraduate degrees remain predominately male, white, and middle- or upper-middle class. While this problem is complex and persistent, for students who are interested in engineering, the beliefs they hold about their own "ability" is critical to their participation. These beliefs are tied to the cultural construction of "intelligence" in educational systems, which is often biased towards the values of dominant groups. In addition to programmatic efforts to directly increase diversity (e.g. women or minority in engineering programs), providing multiple introductory pathways into engineering degree programs is a wide-spread and institutionalized structure that is often assumed to recruit and retain diverse individuals. Such pathways commonly aim to do so through increasing options (e.g., honors or residential versions of introductory courses), access and affordability (e.g., introductory courses at community colleges or regional campuses), and support (e.g., an alternative math starting point). Upon implementation, these pathways may be similar in structure to educational tracking; students with higher previous academic achievement end up in the more prestigious pathways. Prior research in the K-12 context has concluded that such educational tracking perpetuates social inequities; students who participate in less prestigious tracks often hold lower educational aspirations and less positive beliefs about their own ability. As a result, this research seeks to investigate how multiple pathways intended to increase diversity in engineering may fail to achieve this intended goal due to unintended influences on students' beliefs and identities. Through iterative, qualitative analyses the researchers will investigate if and how students' beliefs and identities vary as a function of their participation in a given pathway. Understanding the dynamics of student beliefs and identities across these pathways has the potential for translation into policy recommendations locally and nationally to address the use of multiple pathways to recruit students and promote their persistence in engineering.The study addresses two research questions: 1) What do students on different educational pathways believe about intelligence and engineering? 2) How do these students express their personal identities related to being smart and being an engineer? Based on theories of belief and identity, the researchers will recruit students from six different pathways with varying degrees of competitive entrance, geographic location, class size, and enrollment: 1) an honors program; 2) a living-learning or residential program; 3) a general engineering enrollment program; 4) an alternative mathematics starting point program, 5) a regional campus program; and 6) a community college pathway. Students from all six pathways will supply survey data and 30 will be recruited for in depth interviews conducted three times during the research study. Researchers will code the data giving consideration to each individual's experiences as well as search for patterns in the data from individuals within and across each pathway to determine whether there are between-pathway variations. The research will bring in the voices of individuals who pursue engineering degrees following different pathways, including those who may not be retained in their initial pursuit of an engineering degree. This work may reveal some hidden limitations of multiple pathways as a way to diversify engineering graduates in the US. In addition, the research contributions may advance the field of engineering education by taking a systematic and critical look at potentially problematic differences in students' beliefs and identities as a function of their educational pathway.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.