Developing Next Generation Leaders in Engineering: Understanding the Role of Engineering Identity Formation

该项目将通过支持南达科他州立大学表现出经济需求的高成就低收入学生的保留和毕业，为全国对受过良好教育的科学家、数学家、工程师和技术人员的需求做出贡献。该项目为期五年，将为20名攻读土木工程、电气工程和机械工程学士学位的学生提供四年奖学金。该项目旨在提高学生的工程领导能力，同时提高工科学生的保留率、毕业率和多样性。该大学将把招生工作的重点放在高中参观和大学招聘会、与大学辅导员的联系、通过工程学院开展的外展活动以及大学教师和未来学者之间的个人联系上。每位学者将通过工程领导力系列研讨会获得工程领导力证书，该系列研讨会从第一年为期一周的夏季桥梁课程开始，每学期持续到毕业。此外，该项目将学生置于同侪导师小组中，并利用教师指导和行业网络来建立学生作为工程师和职业道路的能力和信心。该项目将培养参与的学生成为工程学院的榜样。此外，它将为他们作为工程师进入劳动力市场或攻读研究生做好准备。该项目解决了培养多样化和熟练的国家STEM劳动力的需求。该项目的总体目标是提高有经济需求的低收入、高成就本科生的STEM学位完成率。该项目将重点关注两个问题：参与S-STEM学者活动如何影响学生参与者的“工程身份”形成，以及这种身份如何影响学生的持久性？与此相关的研究问题有两个方面。首先，影响被支持学者的工程身份的因素是如何随着时间的推移而演变的，是什么促成了这种演变？第二，影响被资助学者工程认同发展的因素在机械、电气和土木工程三个分支学科中是如何比较的？这项研究将解决工程身份是否是一种可以用来评估基于短期干预的长期影响的措施。它将为工程学生支持活动的设计提供信息，这些活动会影响学生在工程方面的坚持和成功。此外，本研究将提供证据证明工程身份与工程坚持之间的关系，以及工程身份如何在三年级或四年级本科生中具体发展。研究男女学生发展工程学认同的方式的差异，目的是更好地定义成功吸引和留住女学生的具体干预和学生支持活动。该项目由美国国家科学基金会的科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金项目资助，旨在增加有经济需求的低收入学术天才学生在STEM领域获得学位的人数。它还旨在改善未来STEM工作者的教育，并为低收入学生提供有关学业成功、留校、转学、毕业和学术/职业道路的知识。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。

This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at South Dakota State University. Over its five-year duration, this project will fund four-year scholarships to 20 students who are pursuing bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering. This project aims to improve students' engineering leadership skills while increasing retention, graduation rates, and diversity among engineering students. The university will focus recruitment efforts on high school visits and college fairs, contact with college counselors, outreach programs through the College of Engineering, and personal contacts between college faculty and prospective scholars. Each scholar will earn a certificate in engineering leadership through an engineering leadership seminar series, which begins with a first-year, one-week summer bridge course and continues each semester through graduation. Additionally, the project places students in peer mentor groups and uses faculty mentoring and industry networking to build students' competency and confidence as engineers and in their career paths. The project will prepare participating students as role models in the College of Engineering. Furthermore, it will prepare them to enter the workforce as engineers or pursue graduate studies. The project addresses the need to develop a diverse and skilled national STEM workforce.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The project will focus on two questions: How does participation in S-STEM scholar activities affect 'engineering identity' formation in student participants, and how does that identity affect student persistence? Research questions associated with this focus are two-fold. First, how do the factors influencing engineering identity of the supported scholars evolve over time and what contributing factors lead to this evolution? Second, how do factors influencing development of engineering identity of the supported scholars compare across the sub-disciplines of mechanical, electrical and civil engineering? The research will address whether engineering identity is a measure that can be used to evaluate long-term effects based on short-term interventions. It will inform the design of engineering student support activities that influence student persistence and success in engineering. Additionally, this study will provide evidence of the relationships between engineering identity and persistence in engineering, and how engineering identity may be developed specifically in 3rd or 4th year undergraduates. Differences in the way female and male students develop engineering identity will be studied with the intent of better defining the specific intervention and student support activities that are successful in attracting and retaining female students. This project is funded by NSF's Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income students.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.