CAREER:Investigating Co-Curricular Participation of Students Underrepresented in Engineering

这一学院早期职业发展(职业)计划奖项的目的是调查工科学生如何决定参与或不参与联合课程活动，这些学生如何看待各种类型的联合课程活动对他们的坚持性、学习和进入劳动力(或职业)的影响，以及哪些干预措施鼓励联合课程参与。该项目与美国国家科学基金会(NSF)的两个战略绩效目标相一致：培养和利用一支多元化的STEM劳动力队伍，激励他们在前沿参与(T-2)，并建设国家公民通过科学和工程应对社会挑战的能力(I-2)。该项目利用现有的国家科学基金会资助的工具来开发、测试和分发新的调查工具；收集和分析有关共同课程参与度、持久性和学习成果的定量和定性数据，这些数据可以用来指导机构的政策和计划，并设计有效的创新来留住不同的工程学学生，使他们在工作中取得进步；应用研究结果来设计、试点测试和评估创新的循证干预措施，旨在提高学生的坚持性和学习能力，并为有关保留的机构政策和做法提供信息；以及与机构项目和国家专业组织合作，扩大和扩大干预措施的规模，并传播项目的结果。该项目促进了对工程学学生途径的理解，将那些传统上在工程学中代表性不足的人包括在内；在方法上有助于工程学学生的非正式学习；塑造与这些群体相关的未来研究和发展；并为研究社区、政策制定者和机构领导人提供信息。对学生体验的研究对工程教育的变革至关重要，这将导致代表不足的群体更广泛地参与工程。

The objective of this Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program award is to investigate how engineering students decide to participate or not participate in co-curricular activities and how these students perceive the impact of various types of co-curricular activities on their persistence, learning and entry into the workforce (or career) and what interventions encourage co-curricular involvement. This project is aligned with two of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) strategic performance goals: prepare and engage a diverse STEM workforce motivated to participate at the frontiers (T-2) and build the capacity of the nation's citizenry for addressing societal challenges through science and engineering (I-2). This project uses existing NSF-funded instruments to develop, test and distribute a new survey instrument; collect and analyze quantitative and qualitative data on co-curricular involvement, persistence and learning outcomes that can be leveraged to guide institutional policies and programs and to design effective innovations to retain diverse students in engineering that progress to the workforce; apply research findings to design, pilot test and evaluate an innovative, evidence-based intervention constructed to enhance student persistence and learning and to inform institutional policies and practices on retention; and collaborate with institutional programs and national professional organizations to expand and scale up the intervention and disseminate results of the project. This project advances the understanding of engineering students' pathways to include those traditionally underrepresented in engineering; methodologically contributes to informal learning of engineering students; shapes future research and development related to these populations; and informs research communities, policymakers, and institution leaders. Research on the student experience is essential to transforming engineering education, which will result in broader participation of underrepresented groups in engineering.