Research: Collaborative Research: Changing the Conversation with Humanitarian Engineering Context

具有强烈工程认同感的本科生将自己定义为工程师，感觉自己属于工程学，对工程和工程师感觉积极，感觉其他人对工程和工程师感觉积极。工程学的认同感很重要，因为有证据表明，缺乏对工程学的认同感会促使学生离开这门学科，尽管他们展示了技术技能。这个问题对女学生的影响是不同的，她们更有可能感觉到自己和工程学之间的身份不匹配。这是一个全国重要的问题，原因有很多，包括工业对工程师的强烈需求，研究表明多样化的团队能产生更具创造性的结果，以及对社会正义的担忧。这项研究测试了人道主义背景解决这种感知到的身份不匹配的潜力。人道主义工程的特点是侧重于弱势或未得到充分服务的人群；例如，这可包括灾后恢复或国际发展背景下的基础设施设计和建设。有限的证据表明，人道主义问题不成比例地激励女学生坚持工程学。因此，本研究对人文环境是否支持本科生工程认同的形成进行了实证研究，特别关注了性别。如果研究结果证明了这一点，该项目将为全国大学的建筑工程教育工作者创建并广泛传播一本开源教科书。这本教科书将在人道主义背景下框定学科内容，并将使这一课程创新在全国范围内可用。在这项研究中，650名本科生工程专业学生将体验受人道主义、工业或无背景框架的技术工程内容。学生工程认同感的前后测试将通过现有的有效调查工具进行测量，并将由描述工程师活动和反思活动的定性数据补充，这些活动旨在帮助学生从研究经验中建立意义。这些数据将通过面对面、在线和基于课程的干预来收集。这项研究将建立新的理论，在背景、社区参与/服务学习和工程认同方面架起工程教育文献的桥梁。通过根据人道主义结果重新构建工程学内容，我们为学生提供了工程师和工程工作的性质或身份的另一种理论化。这可能使我们能够增加能够认同工程学的学生的数量，从而向更广泛和更多样化的人群打开工程学的大门。最终，通过提供人道主义背景对工程教学的影响的经验证据，这项研究是朝着更具包容性的工程课程迈出的一步。这一奖项反映了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。

Undergraduate students with a strong engineering identity define themselves as engineers, feel that they belong in engineering, feel positively about engineering and engineers, and feel that others feel positively about engineering and engineers. Engineering identity is important because there is evidence that a lack of identification with engineering motivates students to leave the discipline despite demonstrated technical skills. This issue differentially impacts female students, who are more likely to perceive an identity mismatch between themselves and engineering. This is a nationally important problem for a variety of reasons, including strong industrial demand for engineers, research that indicates diverse teams produce more creative results, and concerns of social justice. This research tests the potential of humanitarian context to address this perceived identity mismatch. Humanitarian engineering is distinguished by its focus on vulnerable or otherwise underserved populations; for example, this could include infrastructure design and construction in disaster recovery or international development contexts. There is limited evidence that humanitarian issues disproportionately motivate female students to persist in engineering. As such, this research empirically measures whether or not humanitarian context supports engineering identity formation in undergraduate students, paying particular attention to gender. If justified by the research results, this project will create and widely disseminate an open source textbook companion for construction engineering educators at universities nationwide. This textbook companion will frame disciplinary content in humanitarian context, and will make this curricular innovation available nationwide.In this research, 650 undergraduate engineering students will experience technical engineering content framed by humanitarian, industrial, or no context. Pre- and post-tests of the students' engineering identity will be measured by existing, validated survey tools, and will be complimented by qualitative data from Describe an Engineer activities and reflection activities intended to help students build meaning from the research experience. These data will be collected through in person, online, and course based interventions. This research will build new theory, bridging the engineering education literatures in context, community engagement/service learning, and engineering identity. By reframing engineering content in terms of humanitarian outcomes, we are providing students with an alternate theorization of the nature of - or, the identity of - engineers and engineering work. This may enable us to increase the number of students who can identify with engineering and thereby open the gateway of engineering to a wider and more diverse population. Ultimately, by providing empirical evidence of the impact of humanitarian context in engineering pedagogy, this research is a step towards a more inclusive engineering curriculum.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.