权益分类	功能权益	普通用户	{{item.name}}会员
{{category.name}}	{{benefitItem.name}}

Research: RFE—Understanding graduate engineering student well-being for prediction of retention

研究：RFE——了解工程研究生的福祉以预测保留率

基本信息

批准号：
2034800
负责人：
Jennifer Cromley
金额：
$ 34.79万
依托单位：
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Standard Grant
财政年份：
2021
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2021-03-01 至 2025-02-28
项目状态：
未结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2034800&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
Research RFE Understanding graduate engineering

项目摘要

Doctoral students frequently leave engineering, thereby reducing the supply of highly-trained engineers in the US and contributing to lost tuition investments made for doctoral student tuition. Graduate students face many stresses: from classwork, from their paid teaching and research commitments, and from other stressors outside of their graduate work. In this research on the formation of engineers, we will identify major stressors that PhD-level engineering students commonly face, create and validate a questionnaire to measure these stressors, and test how stress can predict students’ intentions to leave their doctoral programs. The project uses a workplace stress model in which having low control over job hindrances (e.g. course availability, graduation requirements, COVID-19) leads to harmful stress. The results of this study can inform a wide range of programs and personnel who support doctoral engineering students, including faculty advisors and engineering departments, counselling centers, career centers, writing centers, and others. Although prior research work has identified major stressors, little work has been done to compare sources of stress for graduate PhD students and the effects of these stressors on retention. With a research-backed identification of major stressors and their effects, these stakeholders above can be empowered to adopt programmatic changes or other strategies proactively addressing the stressors we will identify. The measure of doctoral students’ stressors that we produce can be broadly implemented by other universities to identify where more supports are needed, to expand available supports, and by other researchers seeking to understand effects of stress on STEM education.The goals of the project are to identify top stressors for doctoral students across different phases of engineering PhD programs and to predict the effects of top stressors on retention in those programs. In Year 1, we will interview a diverse set of students (N = 57) about stressors and coping, to identify which sources of stress occur the most frequently and are perceived by participants as being the most harmful. Participants will also complete existing questionnaires on stress and anxiety, and we will model changes in those variables over an academic year. In Year 2, we will develop a new questionnaire measuring the valence and frequency of top stressors, based on our results from work in Year 1. We will conduct cognitive interviews with doctoral engineering students to identify any confusing items and improve the questionnaire. Following this, we will test the psychometrics of the questionnaire in Year 2 with a diverse sample of 300 doctoral engineering students. In year 3, we will use the newly validated measure, together with other existing measures of stress and anxiety, to predict students’ intention of leaving a doctoral engineering program (N = 300). Outcomes of the project will be findings about the prevalence of different stressors by groups (e.g., groups under-represented in engineering, early/middle/late in doctoral studies, domestic vs. international PhD students), a validated questionnaire widely usable by programs and researchers, and estimates of the effect of stress on intention to remain in a doctoral engineering program. A technical manual and non-technical descriptions of the findings will be made available to the public, together with presentations at research- and practice-focused conferences. Updates will be available on the PI’s website.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.

博士生经常离开工程学，从而减少了美国训练有素的工程师的供应，并导致博士生学费投资损失。研究生面临着许多压力：来自课堂作业的压力，来自他们有偿的教学和研究承诺的压力，以及来自研究生工作之外的其他压力。在这项关于工程师形成的研究中，我们将确定博士生通常面临的主要压力源，创建并验证一份问卷来衡量这些压力源，并测试压力如何预测学生离开博士课程的意图。该项目使用了一个工作压力模型，在该模型中，对工作障碍(例如，课程可获得性、毕业要求、新冠肺炎)控制力较低会导致有害的压力。这项研究的结果可以为广泛的项目和支持工程学博士生的人员提供参考，包括教师顾问和工程系、咨询中心、就业中心、写作中心等。尽管之前的研究工作已经确定了主要的压力源，但很少有人对研究生的压力源和这些压力源对留住的影响进行比较。有了研究支持的主要压力源及其影响的识别，上面的这些利益相关者可以被授权采取方案变化或其他战略，积极应对我们将识别的压力源。我们制作的博士生压力源测量方法可以广泛应用于其他大学，以确定哪里需要更多支持，扩大可用的支持，以及其他试图了解压力对STEM教育影响的研究人员。该项目的目标是确定工科博士项目不同阶段博士生的最大压力源，并预测最大压力源对这些项目留存的影响。在第一年，我们将采访一组不同的学生(N=57)关于压力源和应对方式，以确定哪些压力源最频繁发生，并且被参与者认为是最有害的。参与者还将完成关于压力和焦虑的现有问卷，我们将模拟这些变量在一学年中的变化。在第二年，我们将根据第一年的工作结果编制一份新的问卷，衡量顶级压力源的有效性和频率。我们将对工程学博士生进行认知访谈，以找出任何混淆的项目并改进问卷。随后，我们将在二年级对300名工科博士生进行问卷的心理测量学测试。在第三年，我们将使用新验证的测量方法，以及其他现有的压力和焦虑测量方法，来预测学生离开博士工程项目的意图(N=300)。该项目的结果将是按群体(例如，工程专业代表不足的群体、博士生学习的早期/中期/后期、国内博士生与国际博士生)对不同压力源流行率的调查结果，程序和研究人员广泛使用的有效问卷，以及压力对留在博士工程项目意向的影响的估计。调查结果的技术手册和非技术说明将向公众提供，并将在以研究和实践为重点的会议上进行介绍。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。