Collaborative Research: Supporting the Whole Student: Identifying and Mitigating Barriers to Persistence for Underserved Post-Traditional Engineering Students

虽然已经有关于提高黑人、拉丁裔和经济困难学生在工程专业的保留率的重要研究，但这些研究通常没有考虑到与后传统学生相关的因素。传统的学生是18-24岁，第一次上大学，全日制入学，住在校园里。另一方面，后传统学生可以被认定为以下一个或多个因素：25岁或以上，参加兼职学习，工作以养活自己或家庭，和/或通勤学生。考虑这些因素是重要的，因为它们增加了已经在工程学方面服务不足的人群(即黑人、拉丁裔和经济上处于不利地位的学习者)的复杂性，也因为后传统本科生现在构成了学院和大学的大多数学生。这种人口迁移在高等教育文献中为这一群体产生了一个新的术语：“后传统”学生。“后传统”而不是“非传统”承认，这一群体现在代表了一种新的常态，这些本科生不再是一个异类。随着NSF扩大工程目标和目标人口统计的参与范围，以及高等教育中的这些人口变化，需要进行转变，以了解后传统因素如何影响黑人、拉丁裔和经济困难学生。这个项目将收集和分析来自三个种族和民族差异较大的机构的后传统工程学本科生的数据。该项目将产生广泛的影响；所有机构都有后传统学生，他们需要创造性的支持，如果没有人问他们的需求，他们的需求是知道的。这项研究将采取一种变革性的方法，不仅要了解这些需求，而且要让教职员工与学生合作，找到解决方案。这将导致新的计划和政策，工程界可以在未来的研究中实施和评估这些计划和政策。资源和研究结果将与美国工程教育学会和美国教育理事会等机构合作伙伴一起传播，以确保研究结果得到广泛理解和实施。这项变革性的循环混合方法研究研究将有两个目标。首先，寻求了解影响后传统工科本科生留校率和持久度的因素。其次，旨在确定工程项目可以实施的战略，以更好地包容和响应这些学生的需求。在这些目标的激励下，将回答以下研究问题：1)哪些因素影响后传统服务不足的学生在工程学领域的留存？(数量)；以及2)后传统学生在坚持攻读四年工科学位方面有哪些经验和观点？(定性)。本研究借鉴了工科教育中的合作课程支持模式、学生作为伙伴的概念模式和交叉性。这项为期三年的研究将在三个种族和民族不同的机构中进行：1)一个为拉美裔人服务的大型公共机构；2)一个历史上由黑人组成的小型私立学院/大学；3)一个以白人为主的大型公共机构。量化方法将汇集机构数据集，并从学生和教职员工那里收集调查答复。多阶段的定性研究设计将由焦点小组组成，让学生了解他们的观点。它还将包括利益相关者行动会议，学生和教职员工在会上共同努力，共同为政策和实践提出建议。这项研究的一个关键结果将是来自这些机构的关于后传统学习者的大型数据集，其中将包括比通过中场工程数据文件获得的更多的几个后传统变量。该数据集还将允许团队和未来的项目根据适用于他们的后传统变量的数量来阐明学生群体的差异。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

While there has been important research on improving retention for Black, Latinx, and economically disadvantaged students in engineering, these studies typically do not account for factors associated with being a post-traditional student. Traditional students are 18-24, First Time in College, enrolled full-time, and reside on campus. On the other hand, post-traditional students can be identified with one or more of the following factors: being 25 years of age or older, enrolled part-time, working to support oneself or family, and/or a commuter student. Consideration of these factors is important both because they add significant complexities for a population that is already underserved in engineering (i.e., Black, Latinx, and economically disadvantaged learners), and because post-traditional undergraduates now comprise the majority of students in colleges and universities. This population shift has given rise to a new term in higher education literature for this group: “Post-traditional” students. “Post-traditional” instead of “non-traditional” acknowledges that this population now represents a new normal and that these undergraduates are no longer an aberration. Aligned with the NSF Broadening Participation in Engineering goals and target demographics, along with these population changes in higher education, a shift is needed to understand how post-traditional factors impact Black, Latinx, and economically disadvantaged students. This project will collect and analyze data on underserved post-traditional engineering undergraduates from three racially and ethnically contrasting institutions. The project will have wide implications; post-traditional students are in all institutions and need creative support, and their needs are known if no one asks. This research will take a transformative approach to not only understand those needs but also position faculty and staff to partner with students to find solutions. This should lead to novel programs and policies that the engineering community can implement as well as evaluate in future studies. Resources and findings will be disseminated with institutional partners such as American Society for Engineering Education and American Council on Education to ensure findings are both widely understood and implemented.The goals of this transformative cyclical mixed methods research study will be two-fold. First, seek to understand factors that impact the retention and persistence of underserved post-traditional undergraduates in engineering. Second, aim to identify strategies that engineering programs can implement to be more inclusive of and responsive to these students’ needs. Motivated by these goals, the following research questions will be answered: 1) What factors impact underserved post-traditional students’ retention in engineering? (Quantitative); and 2) What are underserved post-traditional students’ experiences and perspectives regarding their persistence in pursuit of four-year engineering degrees? (Qualitative). The study is informed by the Model of Co-Curricular Support (MCCS) in engineering education, the students-as-partners conceptual model, and intersectionality. This three-year study will be conducted across three racially and ethnically different institutions: 1) A large public Hispanic-Serving Institution; 2) A small private Historically Black College/University; 3) A large public predominately White institution. A quantitative approach will assemble institutional data sets and collect survey responses from both students and faculty/staff. The multi-phase qualitative research design will consist of focus groups with students to understand their perspectives. It will also involve stakeholder action meetings in which students and faculty/staff work together to collaboratively generate recommendations for policy and practice. A key outcome from this study will be a large dataset on post-traditional learners from these institutions, which will include several more post-traditional variables than are available through the MIDFIELD engineering data file. The dataset will also allow the team and future projects to illuminate differences across student populations depending on the number of post-traditional variables that apply to them.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.