Collaborative Research: Track 2: Disrupting Engineering Trauma

该合作研究项目将探索工程中种族化的心理健康经验，并应用创新方法促进该学科的种族平等。该提案的中心假设是，学生，尤其是传统上被排斥的学生，有负面的经历，这些经历会导致高度的痛苦，这种痛苦不明显，但会对他们的大学经历产生重大影响。该提案涉及BPE项目的三个利益：1)了解阻碍传统服务不足社区追求和成功的系统障碍；2)开发创新的方法和项目，以显著影响传统服务不足社区的工程学生、教师和员工的招聘和保留；3)设计和转变文化，使多样性、公平性和包容性成为工程企业的优先事项。这项研究的目的是为了明确，传统的工程教育可以作为一个压力源，足以(1)引起/启动亚临床或临床水平的痛苦和功能障碍，或(2)维持或加剧已有的压力反应。项目指导研究问题包括：基于黑人、拉丁裔和土著（BLI）工程学生对关键生活事件的自我认同，他们的压力和痛苦的基线水平是什么？ BLI学生的种族化经历如何独特地促成了他们的痛苦症状？为了解决这些问题，我们将使用心理学的有效工具来评估工程学生的基线压力、痛苦和创伤，并对本科BLI学生进行深入访谈，以主题分析参与者在工程教育中的痛苦和创伤经历。该项目的智力价值包括：1)定义工程中的种族化压力、痛苦和创伤，这将扩大工程和STEM社区对默认教育实践如何增加学生这些方面的认识；2)阐明工程教育中与心理健康相关的交叉经验。3)扩大现有理论和实践的应用，以理解种族化的压力、痛苦和创伤，促进BLI工程学生的积极心理健康和福祉。该项目的更广泛影响包括：1)建立一个BLI工程专业学生对与他们的工程教育相关的创伤特征的模型，以定义和开发工程压力和创伤的测量方法；2)确定减少导致BLI学生创伤反应的教育经历的策略；3)通过帮助工程学院认识到他们的行为或与学生的互动可能会导致学生反复过度暴露于压力，从而导致创伤性反应，从而发展和更新工程教育教学方法。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 explore racialized mental health experiences in engineering and apply innovative approaches to promote racial equity in the discipline. The central hypothesis of this proposal is that students, especially the traditionally excluded, have negative experiences that result in high levels of distress that is not clearly visible but can have significant impacts within their collegiate experiences. The proposal addresses three interests of the BPE program: 1) Understand the systemic barriers that prevent traditionally underserved communities from pursuing and succeeding in engineering, 2) Develop innovative methods and projects to significantly impact the recruitment and retention of engineering students, faculty, and employees from traditionally underserved communities, and 3) Design and transform culture to make diversity, equity, and inclusion a priority in the engineering enterprise. The purpose of the research is to make clear that engineering education, when performed traditionally, can serve as a stressor that is sufficient to (1) cause/initiate subclinical or clinical levels of distress and dysfunction or (2) maintain or exacerbate pre-existing stress reactions. The project guiding research questions include: What are the baseline levels of stress and distress for Black, Latin, and Indigenous (BLI) engineering students, based on their self-identification of critical life events and How do the racialized experiences of BLI students uniquely contribute to their symptoms of distress? To address these questions we will use validated tools from psychology to assess the baseline stress, distress, and traumas of engineering students and follow-up with in-depth interviews with undergraduate BLI students to thematically analyze participants' distressing and traumatizing experiences in engineering education. The intellectual merit of the project includes 1) defining racialized stress, distress, and trauma in engineering, which will expand the engineering and STEM communities' knowledge of the ways default educational practices increase each of these in students; 2) Articulating the intersectional experiences related to mental health that occur within engineering education. 3) Expand the use of existing theories and practice for understanding racialized stress, distress, and trauma, to foster positive mental health and wellbeing for BLI engineering students. The broader impacts of the project includes 1) Produce a model of BLI engineering students' characterization of trauma related to their engineering education to define and develop measures of stress and trauma in engineering, 2) Identify strategies to reduce educational experiences that lead to traumatic responses for BLI students, and 3) Develop and update engineering education pedagogy by helping engineering faculty recognize how their behaviors or interactions with students may contribute to students' repeated over-exposure to stress that could lead to traumatic responses.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.