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

这个项目将调查工程招聘会作为非正式的学习空间，帮助工程专业的学生。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/招聘人员具有一定程度的重要性-但对这些事件知之甚少。本研究旨在捕捉的目标，期望，和学生的经验，职业服务人员，和雇主/招聘人员谁形状和参加招聘会。该项目将填补一个重要的知识空白，即招聘会如何告知和塑造学生向工程专业人士的转变，以及招聘会如何塑造整个工程专业。本研究揭示的观点将广泛适用于全美的工程学校、职业服务人员和雇主/招聘人员，并有助于我们对工程师职业形成的集体理解。我们的努力将解决两个研究问题：（1）工程招聘会如何作为本科工程专业学生的非正式职业化学习空间？（2）：就业服务人员和雇主/招聘人员在招聘会上对本科工程专业学生有什么隐性和显性的非正式专业化学习意图？我们将回答这些研究问题，使用专题和比较分析的采访和焦点小组的数据收集从三个利益相关者团体参加和/或参与组织工程职业博览会本科生，雇主/招聘人员，职业服务人员，在亚利桑那州州立大学。我们将分两个阶段进行研究：一个试点和学习研究（第一年），然后是一个完善的研究（第二年）。这项研究是潜在的变革，因为它将提供一个具体的和广泛的非正式学习空间的职业博览会，形状的前景和观点的那些考虑工程职业，以及他们的文化适应的专业，它的标准和规范的工程教育界的新的理解和知识。我们提出的工作将研究一个重要的非正式学习空间，告知学生各种途径，并通过工程，这可以极大地影响学生如何设想自己在职业中工作。我们计划通过我们的传播工作，其中包括在工程思想研究所峰会上由工程变革实验室组织的特别会议，与关键的赞助商，包括工程公司，学者，专业协会，政策领导者和职业发展组织，如全国大学和雇主协会分享我们学到的东西-美国。新兴的研究已经开始显示（1）为什么许多少数民族学生离开工程，（2）工程教育如何减少学生对公共福利的关注，以及（3）调整学生的个人和职业价值观，以确保学生对他们的教育和未来工作的满意度的重要性。因此，该项目的智力价值与支持21世纪世纪创新和包容性工程专业的更广泛影响有目的地联系在一起。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力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.