Postdoctoral Fellowship: STEMEdIPRF: Expanding the Inquiry into Undergraduate Engineering Admissions to Broaden Engineering Participation

工程教育途径在上大学前、小学和中学(K-12)以及本科工程学院课程期间都进行了彻底的研究。然而，对工科本科生录取程序的研究要少得多。研究已经发现了高中成绩或标准化测试与大学工程项目成功之间的关系，但通常并没有涉及未来工程师在大学申请中所代表的其他学生经历。考虑到大学招生中重视的经验获取方面的已知不平等，以及当前招生过程中已知的偏见，这种差距令人担忧。这项研究将推进工科本科生录取这一研究不足的领域，以发现可以减少限制接受不同类型工科学生的招生做法的策略。认识到不同工程潜力的新的大学招生做法将对数万名学生产生重要意义和影响，并扩大本科工程学位课程的招生人数，对解决当代技术挑战至关重要的工程学劳动力的规模和构成产生关键的下游影响。这项关于工程学本科生招生的研究分为两个阶段：1)工程招生实践的分类；2)探索本科生工程学申请的学生定制部分的混合方法。第一部分描述了全国工科本科招生协议的生态系统。不同机构的大学录取程序各不相同，但工程教育研究界缺乏一个连贯的招生做法框架。利用分类学的发展和随后的探索性数据分析，这项研究将对未来工程师申请教唆认证机构所需的数据进行分类，要求和录取协议如何因机构类型而异，以及此类要求和协议在全美的流行度。第二部分调查了本科生工程申请的学生书面部分，以确定哪些经验和特征对于工程申请者和招生审查员的接受是重要的。使用混合方法设计，这项研究将分析不同的数据源，包括未来工程师的申请、招生审查人员的文件和面试，以了解学生试图将自己描述为有能力的未来工程人员的方式，招生审查人员如何解释同一组学生信息，以及在构建和解释限制参与工程的申请时出现的偏见。这一集体分两个阶段的项目将提供工程招生的系统分类，以支持未来对工程招生的研究，扩大研究界对工程招生协议的评估，并加强基于证据的战略，以消除本科工程师录取中的偏见。在本指导方针的启发下，改善工程教育研究和招生实践的目标有可能通过减少进入点的障碍来扩大对工程高等教育的参与。该项目由STEM教育博士后研究奖学金(STEM Ed PRF)计划资助，该计划旨在提高STEM、STEM教育、教育和相关学科的新近博士的研究知识、技能和实践，以促进他们从事基础和应用研究，从而提高该领域的知识水平。该奖项反映了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。

Engineering educational pathways have been thoroughly studied prior to college in elementary and secondary school years (K-12), as well as during undergraduate engineering college programs. However, research on the admission processes for undergraduate engineering programs is considerably scarcer. Studies have discovered relationships between high school grades or standardized testing and success in college engineering programs but have not typically addressed other student experiences represented in the college applications of prospective engineers. This gap is troubling given the known inequities of access to experiences that are valued in college admissions and known biases in current admissions processes. This research will advance the understudied area of engineering undergraduate admissions to discover strategies that can reduce admissions practices that limit the acceptance of a diverse population of engineering students. New university admissions practices that recognize diverse engineering potential will be of significance to and impact tens of thousands of students and broaden the number of students enrolling in undergraduate engineering degree programs, with critical downstream impacts on the size and composition of the engineering workforce that is critical to solving contemporary technological challenges.This research on engineering undergraduate admissions is organized in two phases: 1) a classification of engineering admissions practices and 2) a mixed methods approach to probing student-crafted components of undergraduate engineering applications. The first part describes the ecosystem of admissions protocols in undergraduate engineering programs nationally. University admissions processes vary across institutions, but the engineering education research community lacks a coherent framing of admissions practices. Using taxonomy development and subsequent exploratory data analysis, this research will classify what data is required in the applications of prospective engineers to ABET-accredited institutions, how requirements and admission protocols vary by institution type, and the prevalence of such requirements and protocols across the United States. The second part investigates student-written components of undergraduate engineering applications to determine which experiences and characteristics are valued as important for acceptance by engineering applicants and admissions reviewers. Using a mixed methods design, this research will analyze diverse data sources spanning applications from prospective engineers, documentation from admissions reviewers, and interviews to understand the way students attempt to represent themselves as capable, prospective engineering, how admissions reviewers interpret the same set of student information, and where bias arises in the construction and interpretation of applications that limits participation in engineering. The collective two-phase project will provide a systematic classification of engineering admissions to support future research into engineering admissions, expand the evaluation of engineering admissions protocols by the research community, and underpin evidence-based strategies to eliminate bias in the admission of undergraduate engineers. The goal of improving engineering education research and admissions practices inspired by this guidance have the potential to expand participation in engineering higher education by reducing barriers at the point of entry.This project is funded by the STEM Education Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (STEM Ed PRF) program that aims to enhance the research knowledge, skills, and practices of recent doctorates in STEM, STEM education, education, and related disciplines to advance their preparation to engage in fundamental and applied research that advances knowledge within the field.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.