Collaborative Research: "I AM an engineer!" Assessing Engineering Identity, Its Development, and Its Contribution to Retention among Engineering College Students

这项由德克萨斯农工大学系统和老道明大学开展的改善本科生STEM教育(IUSE)项目将通过研究工科大学生在头两年的工程认同感的发展，帮助提高工科学生在工程学中的留存率。在全国各地的工程项目中，必须提高工科学生的留存率。了解工程认同与学生保留的相关程度，产生有效可靠的工程认同及相关结构的量化测量，并检查学生参与专业发展活动对大学头两年工程认同变化的影响，这将是每个工程项目都可以应用的一个贡献。作为参与式学生学习计划中的一个探索性项目，本研究专门为有关学生保留和工程认同的文献正文做出贡献，并具有产生和启发未来工程认同研究的巨大潜力。项目目标是：验证工程认同感的测量；检查大学头两年工程认同感的变化程度；评估从事专业发展活动与工程认同感相关的程度；以及检查工科学生的工程认同感与保持之间的联系。这个项目将建立一种简洁、有效和可靠的工程认同测量方法，使大规模评估成为可能，从而促进未来关于工科学生身份认同和保持的研究和干预。该项目的发现将为更广泛的关于大学生在科学、技术、工程和数学领域的留存情况的文献提供信息。此外，研究结果将对职业认同和职业发展文献产生影响，特别是与职业道路的进入前阶段有关的文献。

This Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) project conducted at the Texas A&M University System and Old Dominion University will help to improve retention of students in engineering by studying the development of engineering identity among engineering college students in their first two years of study. Engineering student retention must be improved in engineering programs across the country. Understanding the extent to which engineering identity is related to student retention, producing valid and reliable quantitative measures of engineering identity and related constructs, and examining the extent to which student participation in professional development activities influence changes in engineering identity during the first two years of college will be a contribution of this project that every engineering program can apply.As an Exploration project in the Engaged Student Learning program, this research contributes specifically to the body of literature on student retention and engineering identity and also has substantial potential to generate and to inspire future research in engineering identity. The project objectives are to: validate a measure of engineering identity; examine the extent to which engineering identity changes during the first two years of college; assess the extent to which engaging in professional development activities is related to engineering identity; and examine links between engineering identity and retention among engineering students. This project will establish a concise, valid, and reliable measure of engineering identity that will enable large-scale assessment, thereby facilitating future research and interventions concerning identity and retention among engineering students. The findings of this project will inform the broader literature on the retention of college students in science, technology, engineering and math. Additionally, the research findings will have implications for the career identity and professional development literatures, especially pertaining to the pre-entry phase of the career pathway.