Research Initiation: Addressing the Readiness Gap through Examining Engineering Students' Perceptions of their Future Professional Selves

研究启动：通过检查工科学生对未来职业自我的看法来解决准备差距

• 批准号: 2306178
• 负责人: Harlynn Ramsey
• 金额: $ 20万
• 依托单位: University of Southern California
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-10-01 至 2025-09-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2306178&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Research; Initiation; Addressing; Readiness; Gap

Research documents a “readiness gap” that new engineering graduates are not fully prepared for the workforce, particularly in terms of professional, non-technical skills (such as communication and teamwork). Engineering educators have adapted curriculum and updated teaching methods to promote these skills, but the gap persists. This study will examine the readiness gap not from the employers’ perspective of the missing desired skills, but from the students’ perspective about their expectations for the workforce. By the time engineering students graduate, they will have been in school for most of their lives: the transition to the workforce is no ordinary transition — it is a step into the unknown. This project will attempt to: 1) understand students’ expectations about life after graduation; and 2) determine to what extent a brief intervention (showing students short videos of recent alumni discussing their personal transitions from school to work) can affect students’ expectations about work and their perspectives about their future selves. Students will be surveyed before and after watching the videos to see if watching the videos affected their sense of their future selves or their expectations for their future work in engineering. The PI leading this study is new to the field of engineering formation research and will be mentored by an established engineering education researcher, which addresses the program goals of initiating new engineering education researchers into the field. Multiple studies have documented a misalignment between new engineering graduates’ preparedness and employer expectations. This study will study the identified “readiness gap” of new engineering graduates entering the workforce by examining students’ expectations toward their professional future. How might identifying, understanding, and potentially addressing their beliefs and misconceptions about engineering contribute to correcting the misalignment? The study will address two Research Questions: 1) How do undergraduate engineering students imagine their professional futures? and 2) How does a brief invention of having students watch a series of short videos by recent alumni affect their perceptions about their professional future? The intervention consists of a series of short, thematically curated video clips of early career engineers answering questions from current students about life and work after graduation. A mixed methods approach will be employed, using pre- and post-surveys and semi-structured interviews of students who watch the videos. Each year of the project, pre- and post-surveys will be conducted with 150 students; from that pool of 150 respondents, 30 students will participate in follow-up semi-structured interviews. We will oversample participants in two ways: first, students from populations historically underrepresented in engineering; second, those who had the strongest positive and negative reactions to a question asking the about the value of intervention. The pre- and post-surveys will include a validated scale, the Future Self Continuity Questionnaire, and the data will help locate students’ sense of their future selves as engineering professionals on a range of fixed to fluid identities, determine whether their perceptions of their future professional selves change after the intervention, and inform analysis of the qualitative data. Study outcomes include establishing a starting point for understanding engineering students’ career expectations and advancing efforts to promote professional readiness through vivid and positive examples of early career engineers; the use of a video intervention will be transferable and adaptable to other types and sizes of institutions. In particular, the study will investigate the perspectives and potential changes in perspective of students from historically underrepresented populations and first-generation university students. Additionally, this project develops the capacity of the PI in engineering education research.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.

研究记录了新的工程毕业生没有为劳动力做好充分准备的“准备差距”，尤其是在专业的非技术技能方面（例如沟通和团队合作）。工程教育者已经适应了课程和更新的教学方法来促进这些技能，但差距仍然存在。这项研究将研究准备差距，不是从员工缺失所需技能的角度来看，而是从学生对他们对劳动力的期望的角度来看。到工程专业的学生毕业时，他们一生中大部分时间都将在学校里：向劳动力的过渡不是普通的过渡 - 这是进入未知数的一步。该项目将尝试：1）了解学生对毕业后生活的期望； 2）确定简短的干预措施（向学生展示最近的校友简短视频，讨论他们从学校到工作的个人过渡）可能会影响学生对工作的期望以及他们对未来自我的看法。在观看视频之前和之后，将对学生进行调查，以查看观看视频是否影响了他们对未来的感觉或对他们对工程学未来工作的期望。领导这项研究的PI是工程形成研究领域的新知识，将由一位既定的工程教育研究人员考虑，该研究人员涉及将新的工程教育研究人员纳入该领域的计划目标。多项研究已记录了新工程毕业生的准备工作与雇主期望之间的不对对准。这项研究将研究新工程毕业生进入劳动力的“准备差距”，以研究学生对他们的专业未来的期望。如何确定，理解并有可能解决他们对纠正未对准的工程贡献的信念和毫无概述？该研究将解决两个研究问题：1）本科工程专业的学生如何想象自己的专业未来？ 2）让学生观看最近的校友一系列简短视频的简短发明如何影响他们对职业未来的看法？该干预措施包括一系列简短的主题策划的早期职业工程师的视频片段，回答了当前学生毕业后生活和工作的问题。将采用一种混合方法的方法，并使用观看视频的学生进行预科和半结构化的访谈。该项目的每一年，都将与150名学生一起进行前后的工作；从150名受访者组成的池中，有30名学生将参加后续半结构化访谈。我们将以两种方式过度按样品进行过度样本：首先，从历史上讲，来自人口的学生在工程方面的人数不足；其次，那些对问题询问有关干预价值的问题的正面反应和负面反应的人。前和后的事后将包括经过验证的量表，未来的自连续性问卷，数据将有助于定位学生对自己作为工程专业人员的未来意识，这些专业人员是固定到流体身份的范围内，确定他们对他们对未来专业人员的看法是否在干预后会改变，并确定对定性数据的分析。研究成果包括建立一个起点，以理解工程学生的职业期望，并通过早期职业工程师的生动和积极的例子来促进专业准备就绪；视频干预的使用将被转移并适应其他类型和规模的机构。特别是，该研究将调查来自历史上代表性不足的人群和第一代大学生的观点和潜在变化。此外，该项目还发展了PI在工程教育研究中的能力。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过使用基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响审查标准来评估，被认为是珍贵的支持。