Research Initiation: Why do students decide to get involved in co-curricular engineering projects?

工程方面的联合课程团队项目--如设计项目、实验作业或基于国家项目的竞赛或挑战--可能是学生形成个人和专业技能和特质的关键经验。她们还可能在留住人数不足的学生群体(例如妇女、少数群体、残疾人)中发挥重要作用，帮助他们完成学位。虽然参与的好处是相对确定的，但学生选择参与或不参与的原因一开始就很难理解，因为这些原因可能涉及广泛的领域，可能不涉及决策的充分知情或理性基础。未能理解学生的选择限制了我们解决参与障碍的能力，限制了我们构建校园项目及其资金以实现成果的能力，这些成果包括在项目团队中提高多样性和更高质量的技术和人际学习。这项研究通过调查和对不同类型大学的学生进行更详细的采访，对学生为什么选择参与联合课程工程项目产生了重要的新见解。这项研究旨在洞察有影响力的决策因素和态度在各个人口群体中是否一致，或者是否存在独特的性别、种族、社会或社会经济相关的反应，这些反应可能反过来影响共同课程学生项目团队的组成。结果将提高对学生动机和认知的理解，包括学生在多大程度上有意识地评估做出一个选择而不是另一个选择的潜在权衡和后果。对学生的调查，辅以更深入的访谈，使用Q方法和现象学解释学生在选择加入(或离开)此类项目时的动机和认知。这项研究应用了成熟的社会科学方法来调查工程建造中一个高度研究不足的领域。最近的调查工具--由国家科学基金会资助开发的--旨在探索学生的共同参与和课外参与，正在被用于Q方法。计划行为理论被用来分析学生的反应，并将其与影响学生参与共同课程工程项目的关键潜在态度、因素和过程联系起来。预计可以根据即将出现的特征反应来预测学生未来的参与程度。选择参与的学生，参与并离开的学生，以及从未决定参与共课项目的学生将被抽样。该项目汇集了一支在联合课程工程项目领域拥有丰富经验的团队，包括参与代表不足、自我效能和专业形成的问题。作为这项研究的一部分，本科生和研究生，包括工程和教学专业的学生，都在接受工程教育方面的有价值的研究培训。预计结果将有助于指导校园文化、结构和资金决策，以增加学生在进入STEM工作队伍之前获得宝贵的共同课程项目经验的数量和多样性。

Co-curricular team projects in engineering - such as design projects, experimental assignments, or national project-based competitions or challenges - can be key experiences for students in forming personal and professional skills and traits. They may also play a strong role in retention and degree completion among underrepresented student groups (for instance women, minorities, those with disabilities). While the benefits of participation are relatively well established, the reasons why students choose to participate or not in the first place are very poorly understood, as they may span a wide spectrum and may not involve fully informed or rational foundations for decision-making. Failure to understand student choices limits our ability to address barriers to participation, and to structure campus programs and their funding to achieve outcomes that include improved diversity and a higher quality of technical and interpersonal learning in project teams. This research involves generating significant new insight into why students choose to participate in co-curricular engineering projects, through use of a mixture of surveys and more detailed interviews with students in different types of universities. The research is designed to yield insight into whether influential decision-making factors and attitudes are consistent across demographic groups or if there are unique gender, ethnicity, social, or socio-economic -related responses that may in turn influence the makeup of co-curricular student project teams. The results will improve the understanding of student motivations and perceptions, including to what extent students consciously evaluate potential trade-offs and consequences of making one choice over another. The survey of students, complemented by interviews for richer depth, uses a Q-Methodology and phenomenological interpretation of student motivations and perceptions when choosing to join (or leave) such projects. The research applies well-established social science approaches to investigate a highly under-studied area in engineering formation. Recent survey tools - developed with NSF funding - designed to explore student co- and extra-curricular engagement are being adopted for the Q Methodology. The Theory of Planned Behavior is being applied to analyze and contextualize the student responses and link them to key underlying attitudes, factors, and processes that influence student participation in co-curricular engineering projects. It is anticipated that predictions of future student involvement can be made based on characteristic responses that will emerge. Students who chose to participate, students who participated and left, and students who never decided to participate in co-curricular projects will be sampled. The project brings together a team with extensive experience in the co-curricular engineering project arena, including engagement on issues of underrepresentation, self-efficacy, and professional formation. Both undergraduate and graduate students, including those from engineering and teaching, are receiving valuable research training in engineering education as part of this research. It is anticipated that the outcomes could help guide campus culture, structure, and funding decisions to enhance the number and diversity of students gaining valuable co-curricular project experience before entering the STEM workforce.