Research Initiation: The Influences of Engineering and Science Identities among Faculty in the Mentoring of Graduate Students

每个人都有一个复杂的身份，由各种因素塑造，如性别、种族、社会经济地位和背景。此外，个人所扮演的角色，如研究工程师，同时也是研究科学家和工程师，对不同个人的身份认同有不同的贡献。虽然之前的研究已经显示了导师身份在师徒关系中的重要性，但没有具体的研究关注工程和研究身份对研究工程师之间这些关系的贡献。本研究旨在探讨工程研究导师（ERMs）身份认同的不同方面，在本研究中，ERMs指的是研究型大学的工程教师。该项目旨在了解身份的这些方面如何影响erm采用的指导方法。最终目标是在学术工程研究环境中加强指导实践，解决博士生未能完成学位等问题。在这个项目中，研究的初始目标是培养混合方法研究的首席研究员（PI），并支持他们在工程教育研究方面的第一个资助项目。这不仅可以使PI在未来的研究中取得成功，而且可以为那些已经概念化的研究奠定基础。这个项目的研究目标是了解工程研究导师如何根据他们作为工程师和/或研究科学家的程度不同来处理师徒关系。本提案中提出的总体研究问题是：工程认同（EI）和研究科学认同（RSI）的优势如何在工程研究导师与学员的关系中发挥作用？为了回答这个问题，我们将通过一项带有显性问题和内隐关联测试的调查，以及深入的定性访谈，量化工程研究导师的EI和RSI，具体目的如下：1)获得ERM中EI和RSI的测量值，并探索促成因素；2)确定ERM的显性和隐性身份测量值在多大程度上一致；3)理解这些身份在ERM的师徒关系中的运作化。通过这些目标，本研究将寻求回答以下四个研究问题：RQ1: erm的显式EI和显式RSI的分布是什么？erm的内隐EI-RSI同一性偏差分布是怎样的？RQ3: EI-RSI同一性偏差的显式测量和隐式测量之间的一致性是什么？RQ4：认同和认同偏见是如何在erm的师徒关系中运作的？这项工作的原创性在于：从这些步骤中获得的数据将是在未充分研究的erm组中首次测量EI和RSI；这项工作将在任何一组工程师中首次获得EI和RSI的隐式测量；这些测量既可以指导定性访谈，也可以为研究结果提供有意义的背景。深入了解ERM自身的职业身份如何影响她/他的指导，将为改进指导和完善指导培训计划创造机会。通过程序设计和导师发展来改善指导的干预将有利于学生的招募、保留和成功，所有这些都将支持扩大工程参与的努力。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。

Each person has a complex identity shaped by various factors such as their gender, race, socio-economic status, and background. Additionally, the roles individuals hold, like that of research engineers who also serve as research scientists and engineers, contribute to their identity in differing amounts for different individuals. While previous research has shown the significance of a mentor's identity in mentor-mentee relationships, no specific studies have focused on the contributions of engineering and research identities to these relationships among research engineers. This research project aims to explore different aspects of identity in Engineering Research Mentors (ERMs), who in this study refer to engineering faculty at research universities. The project aims to understand how these aspects of identity influence the mentoring approaches adopted by ERMs. The ultimate goal is to enhance mentoring practices in academic engineering research settings, addressing issues such as PhD students failing to complete their degrees. Fully integrated in this project is the research initiation objective to train the Principal Investigator (PI) in mixed-methods research and support their first funded project in engineering education research. This will not only enable the PI to succeed in future studies but also lay the foundation for those studies that have already been conceptualized.The research goal of this project will be to understand how engineering research mentors approach mentor-mentee relationships differently based on the degree to which they identify as engineers and/or research scientists. The overall research question asked in this proposal is: How do the strengths of Engineering Identity (EI) and Research Science Identity (RSI) operationalize in Engineering Research Mentors’ relationships with mentees? To answer this question, we will quantify EI and RSI in engineering research mentors through a survey with explicit questions and an implicit association test, followed by in-depth qualitative interviews, with the following specific aims: 1) Obtain measurements of EI and RSI in ERMs and explore contributory factors, 2) Determine to what extent an ERM’s explicit and implicit measures of identity agree, and 3) Understand the operationalization of these identities in the ERM’s mentoring relationships. Through these aims, the study will seek to answer the following four research questions: RQ1: What is the distribution of explicit EI and explicit RSI of ERMs? RQ2: What is the distribution of implicit EI–RSI identity bias of ERMs? RQ3: What is the agreement between explicit and implicit measurements of EI–RSI identity bias? RQ4: How do identity and identity bias operationalize in ERMs’ mentor-mentee relationships? This work is original in that: data obtained from these steps will be the first ever measurements of EI and RSI in the understudied group of ERMs; this work will obtain the first implicit measurements of EI and RSI in any group of engineers; and these measurements will both guide qualitative interviews and provide meaningful context to the findings. Deeper understanding of how an ERM’s own professional identities affect her/his mentoring will create opportunities for improved mentorship and refined mentorship-training programs. Interventions to improve mentoring through program design and mentor development will benefit student recruitment, retention, and success, all of which will support efforts to broaden participation in engineering.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.