Collaborative Research: Engaging Engineering Graduate Program Directors in Shifting the Default to Trauma-Informed Frameworks of Care

这个合作研究项目将通过探索研究生项目主任（gpd）如何使创伤知情护理成为项目默认值，来解决影响40%以上研究生的日益严重的心理健康危机。gpd可以塑造部门程序，制定机构政策，并破坏教师和学生之间的权力动态。换句话说，gpd对于改善和维持研究生的心理健康和幸福至关重要。因此，该项目将与gpd一起构建课程，以帮助gpd的广大受众实施创伤知情实践。项目成果将支持积极干预措施的改进和发展，以支持研究生工程项目的积极心理健康和福祉。改善工程项目中支持研究生心理健康的系统将提高各级工程教育的招聘和保留，这反过来又解决了国家对培训工程师以应对重大挑战的需求。该项目的成果还将通过培养担任领导职位的教师来直接改变研究生项目的氛围，提高对工程项目中研究生心理健康的认识。这些变化将作为基于证据的模式，增加对支持心理健康和促进学生福祉的做法的采用。该项目将研究心理健康危机，重点关注国内生产总值在综合考虑研究生已经经历或可能经历的各种创伤的护理框架中的作用。这项调查的结果将描述工程gpd的作用，并为开发培训gpd社区以实施促进护理的循证实践的方法提供信息。本项目将采用两阶段研究设计来解决三个研究问题（RQ）： RQ1：工程研究生项目主任在培养项目关怀文化方面的特点是什么？RQ2：高等教育中的系统结构如何影响工程研究生项目主任对创伤知情护理框架的实施？RQ3：什么样的专业发展项目特征可以支持工程研究生项目主任将创伤知情的护理框架整合到他们支持研究生的方法中的感知能力？第一阶段将利用连续混合方法，通过一项全国性调查，然后是半结构化访谈，来描述工程gpd的角色，以及项目如何利用护理实践。第二阶段将以这些特征为基础，共同开发一个以证据为基础的专业发展框架，以便在工程研究生项目中创建创伤知情的护理系统。我们将整合团队指导的专业发展方法和合作探究，以探索参与的gpd的生活经历，并使他们能够尝试在他们的项目中培养关怀。该研究设计将扩展现有的理论，以实施创伤知情的护理框架，以促进工程研究生教育中的积极心理健康和福祉。研究结果将为教师和教师提供实践依据，使他们认识到创伤的广泛影响，并认识到学生对创伤的经历、应对和反应。该项目将产生四个更广泛的影响：(1) GPD在工程中的角色特征，研究人员可以使用它来加速研究生工程教育中的其他教育创新；(2)与GPD合作开发和传播的原型，以及包含有执照的专业顾问的咨询委员会，可以授权并使GPD能够对经历创伤的学生做出反应，并最大限度地减少新创伤的发生；(3)结构变化以支持已经或将要经历创伤的学生；这样他们就可以回到深度学习并增加他们坚持下去的可能性，(4)教师可以通过实施响应学生身份驱动体验的护理实践来更好地支持系统上少数民族的学生。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 collaborative research project will address the growing mental health crisis that affects over 40% of graduate students by exploring how graduate program directors (GPDs) can make trauma-informed care a programmatic default. GPDs can shape departmental procedures, enact institutional policies, and disrupt power dynamics between faculty and students. In other words, GPDs are central to improving and sustaining graduate students’ mental health and wellbeing. As such, this project will construct a curriculum with GPDs to aid in implementing trauma-informed practices to a large audience of GPDs. The project outcomes will support the improvement and development of proactive interventions to support positive mental health and wellbeing in graduate engineering programs. Improving the systems that support graduate student mental health in engineering programs will enhance recruitment and retention at all levels of engineering education, which in turn addresses the national need of training engineers to address grand challenges. The project results will also raise awareness of graduate mental health in engineering programs by preparing faculty in leadership positions to change the climate in graduate programs directly. These changes will serve as evidence-based models that increase the adoption of practices to support mental health and promote student wellbeing.This project will examine the mental health crisis by focusing on the role of GPDs in integrating frameworks of care that consider the full range of traumas graduate students have experienced or could experience. The results of this investigation will characterize the roles of engineering GPDs and inform the development of methods to train a community of GPDs to implement evidence-based practices that foster care. This project will use a two-phase research design to address three research questions (RQ): RQ1: What are the characteristic roles of engineering graduate program directors in fostering cultures of care in their programs? RQ2: How do the systemic structures within higher education impact engineering graduate program directors’ implementation of trauma-informed frameworks of care? RQ3: What professional development program features can support engineering graduate program directors’ perceived ability to integrate trauma-informed frameworks of care in their approach to supporting graduate students? Phase 1 will leverage sequential mixed methods through a national survey followed by semi-structured interviews to characterize the roles of engineering GPDs and how programs leverage care practices. Phase 2 will build on these characterizations to collaboratively develop an evidence-based professional development framework for creating trauma-informed systems of care within engineering graduate programs. We will integrate a group coaching professional development approach with collaborative inquiry to explore the lived experiences of the GPDs participating and enable their attempts to foster care in their programs. The research design will expand existing theories for implementing trauma-informed frameworks of care to promote positive mental health and wellbeing within engineering graduate education. The results will inform the practices that faculty and instructors can use to realize the broad impact of trauma and recognize students experiencing, coping, and reacting to trauma. Four broader impacts will emerge from this project: (1) A characterization of GPD roles in engineering that researchers can use to accelerate other educational innovations in graduate engineering education, (2) A prototype developed and disseminated in collaboration with GPDs and an advisory board containing licensed professional counselors that can empower and enable GPDs to respond to students experiencing trauma and to minimize the occurrence of new trauma, (3) Structural changes to support students that have or will experience trauma, so they can return to deep learning and increase their likelihood to persist, and (4) Faculty who can better support systemically minoritized students through the implementation of care practices that respond to students’ identity-driven experiences.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.