Research Initiation: Understanding the relationships between participation in co-curricular activities, student characteristics, and the professional formation of engineers.

在高等教育中有一种普遍的看法，即以工程为中心的课外活动有利于建立信心，提高学习成绩，并在工程学生中发展社会和专业网络。虽然有许多已发表的研究将参加各种课外活动（如社交俱乐部和志愿服务）与学术和社会发展联系起来，但很少有关于参加更多以工程为基础的组织的影响的文章。本项目旨在研究：(1)为什么学生参加课外工程活动，如工程荣誉和专业协会和设计团队；(2)这种参与是否给参与者带来好处，并帮助他们发展成为专业工程师；(3)我们如何利用这些好处来吸引和留住在科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）领域代表性不足的学生，包括女性、非洲裔美国人、西班牙裔美国人；第一代学生。该项目的研究结果将为未来的努力奠定基础，包括设计基于具体数据和证据而不是直觉的工程类活动，使不同的学生群体受益。人们普遍认为，只要工程荣誉、专业协会和设计团队等项目设计合理，它们就有利于建立社会资本，增强自我效能，并建立坚实的工程身份。然而，很少有文献专门在工程教育中支持这种说法。本项目旨在回答三个主要的研究问题：1。目前参加以工程为中心的课外活动的学生有什么特点？参与对学习成绩和坚持，以及对心理社会因素（如动机、社会资本和工程身份）的影响是什么？如何将这些好处转移到那些在科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）领域代表性不足的学生身上，包括女性、非裔美国人、西班牙裔和第一代学生？该项目的专业发展部分将通过利用具有技术内容知识、学生组织实践经验、理论框架基础以及定量和定性数据收集和分析专业知识的学者的专业知识来完成。这项研究的一个直接结果将是对项目进行深思熟虑和有效的设计，以吸引和留住更多的学生进入科学和工程学科，特别是那些来自代表性不足和服务不足的人群的学生。此外，这项工作将试点工程教育研究发展计划，从而建立工程学院进行工程教育研究和奖学金的能力。

There is a common perception in higher education that engineering-centered co-curricular activities are beneficial in building confidence, improving academic performance, and developing social and professional networks among engineering students. While there are many published studies that link participation in various types of extra-curricular activities, such as social clubs and volunteerism, on academic and social development, little is written about the effect of participation in more engineering-based organizations. This project seeks to study: (1) why students participate in co-curricular engineering activities, such as engineering honors and professional societies and design teams, (2) whether such participation confers benefits to the participants and helps them develop into professional engineers, and (3) how we might leverage those benefits to attract and retain students who are underrepresented in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, including women, African American, Hispanic, and first generation students. Findings from this project will lay the groundwork for future efforts that will include the design of engineering-based activities that benefit a diverse student body based on concrete data and evidence rather than on intuition.It is widely presumed that as long as programs such as engineering honors and professional societies, and design teams are rationally designed, they are beneficial in building social capital, enforcing self-efficacy, and establishing a solid engineering identity. However, there is very little in the literature specifically in engineering education to support such claims. This project seeks to answer three major research questions:1. What are the characteristics of the students who currently participate in engineering-centered co-curricular activities?2. What are the outcomes of participation on academic performance and persistence, and on psychosocial factors such as motivation, social capital, and engineering identity?3. How can these benefits be transferred to students who are underrepresented in who that are underrepresented in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, including women, African American, Hispanic, and first generation students?The professional development portion of this project will be accomplished by leveraging the expertise of scholars who have a combination of technical content knowledge, practical experience in student organizations, a grounding in theoretical frameworks, and quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis expertise. A direct outcome of this research will be the thoughtful and efficacious design of programs that attract and retain more students into science and engineering disciplines, especially those coming from underrepresented and underserved populations. In addition, this work will pilot an engineering education research development plan and thus build capacity for engineering faculty to conduct engineering education research and scholarship.