Collaborative Research: Track 2: Disrupting Engineering Trauma

这个合作研究项目将探索工程中的种族化心理健康经验，并应用创新方法来促进该学科的种族平等。这一建议的核心假设是，学生，特别是传统上被排除在外的学生，有负面的经历，导致高水平的痛苦，这是不清楚可见的，但可以在他们的大学经历产生重大影响。该提案涉及BPE计划的三个利益：1）了解阻止传统上服务不足的社区追求和成功的系统性障碍，2）开发创新方法和项目，以显着影响传统上服务不足的社区的工程学生，教师和员工的招聘和保留，以及3）设计和改造文化，使多样性，公平，并优先考虑工程企业。本研究的目的是明确工程教育，当进行传统的，可以作为一个压力源，足以（1）导致/启动亚临床或临床水平的痛苦和功能障碍或（2）维持或加剧预先存在的压力反应。该项目指导的研究问题包括：什么是压力和痛苦的黑人，拉丁美洲和土著（BLI）工程学生的基线水平，根据他们的自我识别的关键生活事件和如何做BLI学生的种族化的经验独特地有助于他们的痛苦症状？为了解决这些问题，我们将使用心理学验证的工具来评估工程专业学生的基线压力，痛苦和创伤，并与本科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增加学生中每一种方式的了解; 2）阐明与工程教育中发生的心理健康相关的交叉经验。3)扩大使用现有的理论和实践来理解种族化的压力，痛苦和创伤，以促进BLI工程学生的积极心理健康和幸福。该项目的更广泛的影响包括：1）制作一个模型的BLI工程学生的创伤特征与他们的工程教育，以定义和开发工程压力和创伤的措施，2）确定战略，以减少教育经验，导致创伤反应的BLI学生，和3）发展和更新工程教育教学法，帮助工程教师认识到他们的行为或与学生的互动可能会导致学生的重复过度，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 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.