Research Initiation: Understanding engineering career fairs as informal professionalization learning spaces

这个项目将把工程招聘会作为帮助工程专业学生专业化的非正式学习空间进行调查。工程招聘会的规模和广泛流行表明，招聘会对学生、工程学校和雇主/招聘者有一定程度的重要性，但人们对这些活动知之甚少。这项研究旨在捕捉学生、职业服务人员和雇主/招聘者的目标、期望和经历，这些人塑造和参加招聘会。这个项目将填补招聘会如何通知和塑造学生向工程专业人员转变的重要知识空白，以及招聘会如何塑造整个工程专业。这项研究揭示的见解将广泛适用于美国各地的工程学校、就业服务人员和雇主/招聘者，并有助于我们对工程师职业形成的集体理解。我们将努力解决两个研究问题：(1)工程招聘会如何作为工科本科生的非正式职业化学习空间？(2)：招聘会上职业服务人员和雇主/招聘者对工科本科生有什么隐含和明确的非正式职业化学习意图？我们将通过对采访和焦点小组数据的主题和比较分析来回答这些研究问题，这些数据来自参加和/或参与组织亚利桑那州立大学工程招聘会的三个利益相关者群体--本科生、雇主/招聘者和就业服务人员。我们将分两个阶段进行研究：先导和学习研究(第一年)，然后是完善研究(第二年)。这项研究具有潜在的变革性，因为它将为工程教育界提供新的理解和知识，让他们了解一个具体而广泛的非正式学习空间--招聘会--如何塑造那些考虑从事工程职业的人的观点和观点，以及他们对该职业、其标准和规范的适应程度。我们提议的工作将考察一个重要的非正式学习空间，它向学生提供通往和通过工程的不同途径，这可能会极大地影响学生对自己在该专业工作的想象。我们计划通过我们的传播努力，与主要利益相关者分享我们所学到的东西，包括工程公司、学者、专业协会、政策领导人和全国大学与雇主协会等职业发展组织，其中将包括在美国工程变革实验室组织的工程思想研究所峰会上举行的特别会议。新出现的研究已经开始表明(1)许多小学生离开工程学的原因；(2)工程学教育如何减少学生对公共福利的担忧；(3)协调学生的个人和职业价值观以确保学生对自己的教育和未来工作满意的重要性。因此，该项目的学术价值被刻意地与支持21世纪创新和包容性工程专业的更广泛影响联系在一起。该奖项反映了NSF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 investigate engineering career fairs as informal learning spaces that help professionalize engineering students. The scale and widespread prevalence of engineering career fairs suggests a certain degree of importance of career fairs to students, engineering schools, and employers/recruiters - yet little is known about these events. This study aims to capture the goals, expectations, and experiences of students, career services staff, and employers/recruiters who shape and attend career fairs. This project will fill an important knowledge gap in how career fairs inform and shape students’ transformations into engineering professionals, and how career fairs shape the engineering profession as a whole. Insights revealed from this study will be broadly applicable to engineering schools, career services staff, and employers/recruiters across the US, and contribute to our collective understanding of the professional formation of engineers.Our efforts will address two research questions: (1) How do engineering career fairs operate as informal professionalization learning spaces for undergraduate engineering students?, and (2): What implicit and explicit informal professionalization learning intentions do career services staff and employers/recruiters have for undergraduate engineering students at career fairs? We will answer these research questions using thematic and comparative analysis of interview and focus group data gathered from three stakeholder groups attending and/or involved in organizing engineering career fairs—undergraduate students, employers/recruiters, and career services staff—at Arizona State University. We will conduct the research in two phases: a pilot and learning study (Year 1) followed by a refined study (Year 2). This research is potentially transformative in that it will provide the engineering education community with novel understanding and knowledge of how a specific and widespread informal learning space—career fairs—shapes the outlooks and perspectives of those considering engineering careers, and their acculturation to the profession, its standards, and its norms. Our proposed work will examine an important informal learning space that informs students about the diverse pathways to and through engineering, which can greatly impact how students envision themselves working in the profession. We plan to share what we learn with key stakeholders—including engineering companies, academics, professional societies, policy leaders, and career development organizations like the National Association of Colleges and Employers—through our dissemination efforts, which will include a special session at the Engineering Ideas Institute Summit organized by Engineering Change Lab-USA. Emerging research has begun to show (1) why many minoritized students leave engineering, (2) how engineering education reduces students' concerns for public welfare, and (3) the importance of aligning students’ personal and professional values to ensure student satisfaction with their education and future jobs. The intellectual merits of the project are thus purposefully tied to the broader impacts of supporting an innovative and inclusive engineering profession for the 21st century.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.