CAREER: Valuing Education and Career Transition Opportunities Raising Student Success in Engineering

职业：重视教育和职业转型机会，提高学生在工程领域的成功

• 批准号: 2144213
• 负责人: Kristin Frady
• 金额: $ 59.99万
• 依托单位: Clemson University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-05-01 至 2027-04-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2144213&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Valuing; Education; Career; Transition

Two-year colleges play a vital role in educating and awarding advanced credentials to America’s future scientists and technicians. The research supported by this CAREER award will emphasize the importance of and expand understanding of the role that two-year colleges play in the engineering education and career pipeline. Yet, racial and location inequity in vertical transfer highlight a lack of access to life changing educational opportunities. This project will focus on identifying unique geographic and cultural assets to make pre-transfer engineering students, from a variety of backgrounds, locations, and opportunities, more successful thereby increasing the number and preparedness of transfer students. To make this information accessible to engineering transfer students, this project will also develop and test a first-of-its-kind digital Engineering Transfer Student Dashboard where students will receive custom reports identifying assets, areas of strengths, and suggestions for improving engineering transfer student capital. Further, this research aligns with the overarching goals of the NSF Engineering Education program in its focus on exploring diverse pathways to and through engineering degree programs. This educational research will enhance inclusion and participation in engineering which also supports the NSF Engineering Education program’s focus on developing a more innovative and inclusive technical workforce. This CAREER award will provide a foundation for future research supporting innovation at the intersection of two-year college, engineering education, human resource development, and educational leadership fields focusing on valuing education and career transition opportunities raising student success.The purpose of this CAREER proposal is two-pronged. The first, is a mixed methods study to create new knowledge to increase engineering transfer numbers and preparedness more broadly through investigating the geographic and cultural assets of transfer intending two-year college students. The second is to integrate these research findings into digital educational interventions aimed at improving transfer student capital and to test the efficacy of those interventions. The research will be informed by Laanan’s theory of transfer student capital and examines core constructs of transfer student capital. The two research questions for the research portion of this project are: What are assets, factors, and strategies that enable access for two-year college students to engineering transfer pathways? Do assets, factors, and strategies vary in magnitude and/or presence across student demographics, location, institutions, or intention to transfer? The educational portions of this project, directly integrate findings from the research, and aim to answer two additional research questions: How does use of digital learning tools and resources impact transfer outcomes for pre-transfer engineering students? To what extent can transfer outcomes be improved, through use of digital learning tools, for students from underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds? A multi-institutional team will support implementation of this project including Clemson University, TriCounty Technical College, Piedmont Technical College, Greenville Technical College, and the South Carolina Technical College System. This project aims to broaden participation through improving access to engineering education and baccalaureate degree programs for underrepresented minority, low-income, first-generation, and nontraditional students. Increased transfer pathways and educational innovations specifically designed for marginalized communities can improve transfer outcomes and positively impact college affordability for students from communities not previously well served. This research is distinct from other transfer student research in its combined focus on geographic and cultural assets and needs, inclusion of multi-institutional data, pre-transfer student focus, data disaggregation by subpopulations, and disciplinary focus on engineering. This research will also inform institutional supports, pathways, and resources needed for increased transfer student capital, stimulate interaction of researchers and practitioners with policymakers and the public, and expand of stakeholder capacity to support and engage diverse populations in STEM education through new partnerships.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.

两年制学院在教育和授予美国未来的科学家和技术人员先进证书方面发挥着至关重要的作用。该职业奖支持的研究将强调两年制学院在工程教育和职业管道中发挥作用的重要性，并扩大对这一作用的理解。然而，纵向转移中的种族和地点不平等突出表明缺乏获得改变生活的教育机会。该项目将侧重于确定独特的地理和文化资产，使来自各种背景，地点和机会的预转学工程学生更加成功，从而增加转学学生的数量和准备。为了使这些信息可供工程转学生使用，该项目还将开发和测试一个首个数字工程转学生仪表板，学生将收到自定义报告，识别资产，优势领域以及改善工程转学生资本的建议。此外，这项研究符合NSF工程教育计划的总体目标，重点是探索通往工程学位课程的各种途径。这项教育研究将增强工程领域的包容性和参与度，这也支持NSF工程教育计划重点培养更具创新性和包容性的技术劳动力。这个CAREER奖将为未来的研究提供基础，支持两年制大学，工程教育，人力资源开发和教育领导领域的交叉创新，重点是重视教育和职业过渡机会，提高学生的成功。这个CAREER提案的目的是双管齐下。第一，是一个混合方法的研究，以创造新的知识，以增加工程转移的数量和准备更广泛地通过调查的地理和文化资产的转让打算两年制大学生。第二是将这些研究结果整合到旨在改善转学生资本的数字教育干预措施中，并测试这些干预措施的有效性。本研究将以Laanan的转学生资本理论为基础，探讨转学生资本的核心结构。该项目的研究部分的两个研究问题是：什么是资产，因素和策略，使两年制大学生获得工程转移途径？ 资产，因素和策略是否在学生人口统计，位置，机构或转移意图的大小和/或存在方面有所不同？该项目的教育部分，直接整合研究结果，旨在回答两个额外的研究问题：使用数字学习工具和资源如何影响预转移工程学生的转移结果？对于来自代表性不足和弱势背景的学生，通过使用数字学习工具，可以在多大程度上改善转学结果？一个多机构团队将支持该项目的实施，包括克莱姆森大学、三县技术学院、皮埃蒙特技术学院、格林维尔技术学院和南卡罗来纳州技术学院系统。该项目旨在通过改善代表性不足的少数民族，低收入，第一代和非传统学生获得工程教育和学士学位课程来扩大参与。增加专门为边缘化社区设计的转学途径和教育创新可以改善转学结果，并对来自以前没有得到良好服务的社区的学生的大学负担能力产生积极影响。这项研究与其他转学生研究的不同之处在于其对地理和文化资产和需求的综合关注，包括多机构数据，预转学生重点，亚群数据分解以及工程学科重点。这项研究还将为增加转学生资本所需的机构支持、途径和资源提供信息，促进研究人员和从业人员与政策制定者和公众的互动，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识产权进行评估，被认为值得支持。优点和更广泛的影响审查标准。