Am I Smart Enough to be an Engineer? Study of Engineering Students' Beliefs and Identities Across Institutionalized Educational Pathways

这个EHR核心研究项目包括一项定性的探索性研究，它将收集访谈数据，以捕捉一年级工程专业学生在智力和工程方面的信念和身份。学员将通过六种不同的制度化途径参加相同的工程学入门课程。尽管做出了很大努力来增加工程学专业中人数不足的群体的参与，但那些获得工程学本科学位的人仍然主要是男性、白人和中产阶级或中上阶层。虽然这个问题是复杂和持久的，但对于对工程感兴趣的学生来说，他们对自己“能力”的信念对他们的参与至关重要。这些信念与教育系统中“智力”的文化建设有关，这种文化建设往往偏向于占主导地位的群体的价值观。除了直接增加多样性的计划努力(例如，工程学课程中的女性或少数族裔)，提供进入工程学学位课程的多种入门途径是一种广泛和制度化的结构，通常被认为是为了招聘和留住不同的人。这类途径通常旨在通过增加选择(例如，荣誉或入门课程的住校版)、获得机会和负担能力(例如，社区大学或地区校园的入门课程)和支持(例如，替代数学起点)来实现这一点。一旦实施，这些途径可能在结构上类似于教育跟踪；以前学业成就较高的学生最终会进入更有声望的途径。以前对K-12教育的研究得出结论，这种教育跟踪使社会不平等永久化；参加不那么有声望的跟踪的学生往往对自己的教育抱负较低，对自己的能力不那么积极。因此，这项研究试图调查，由于对学生信念和身份的意外影响，多条旨在增加工程多样性的途径可能无法实现这一预期目标。通过迭代的定性分析，研究人员将调查学生的信念和身份是否以及如何作为他们参与给定路径的函数而变化。了解这些途径上学生信念和身份的动态变化，有可能转化为地方和国家的政策建议，以解决使用多种途径招生和促进他们对工程的坚持。这项研究解决了两个研究问题：1)不同教育途径上的学生对智力和工程学有什么看法？2)这些学生如何表达他们与聪明和成为一名工程师相关的个人身份？基于信念和认同感理论，研究人员将从六种不同的途径招收学生，这些途径的入学竞争程度、地理位置、班级规模和招生人数不同：1)荣誉计划；2)生活学习或住宿计划；3)普通工程招生计划；4)替代数学起点计划；5)区域校园计划；6)社区大学计划。来自所有六个途径的学生将提供调查数据，并将招募30名学生在研究期间进行三次深入访谈。研究人员将考虑每个人的经历对数据进行编码，并在每条路径内和跨路径的个人数据中搜索模式，以确定路径之间是否存在差异。这项研究将引入那些沿着不同途径攻读工程学学位的人的声音，包括那些在最初攻读工程学学位时可能没有被留住的人。这项工作可能会揭示多条途径的一些隐藏局限性，作为让美国工程学毕业生多样化的一种方式。此外，这些研究贡献可能会通过系统和批判性地研究学生信念和身份的潜在问题差异来推动工程教育领域的发展。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。

This EHR Core Research project involves a qualitative, exploratory study that will collect interview data to capture the beliefs and identities of first-year engineering students with respect to intelligence and engineering. Participants will be enrolled in the same introductory engineering courses across six distinct institutionalized pathways. Despite significant efforts to increase the participation of underrepresented groups in engineering, those who earn engineering undergraduate degrees remain predominately male, white, and middle- or upper-middle class. While this problem is complex and persistent, for students who are interested in engineering, the beliefs they hold about their own "ability" is critical to their participation. These beliefs are tied to the cultural construction of "intelligence" in educational systems, which is often biased towards the values of dominant groups. In addition to programmatic efforts to directly increase diversity (e.g. women or minority in engineering programs), providing multiple introductory pathways into engineering degree programs is a wide-spread and institutionalized structure that is often assumed to recruit and retain diverse individuals. Such pathways commonly aim to do so through increasing options (e.g., honors or residential versions of introductory courses), access and affordability (e.g., introductory courses at community colleges or regional campuses), and support (e.g., an alternative math starting point). Upon implementation, these pathways may be similar in structure to educational tracking; students with higher previous academic achievement end up in the more prestigious pathways. Prior research in the K-12 context has concluded that such educational tracking perpetuates social inequities; students who participate in less prestigious tracks often hold lower educational aspirations and less positive beliefs about their own ability. As a result, this research seeks to investigate how multiple pathways intended to increase diversity in engineering may fail to achieve this intended goal due to unintended influences on students' beliefs and identities. Through iterative, qualitative analyses the researchers will investigate if and how students' beliefs and identities vary as a function of their participation in a given pathway. Understanding the dynamics of student beliefs and identities across these pathways has the potential for translation into policy recommendations locally and nationally to address the use of multiple pathways to recruit students and promote their persistence in engineering.The study addresses two research questions: 1) What do students on different educational pathways believe about intelligence and engineering? 2) How do these students express their personal identities related to being smart and being an engineer? Based on theories of belief and identity, the researchers will recruit students from six different pathways with varying degrees of competitive entrance, geographic location, class size, and enrollment: 1) an honors program; 2) a living-learning or residential program; 3) a general engineering enrollment program; 4) an alternative mathematics starting point program, 5) a regional campus program; and 6) a community college pathway. Students from all six pathways will supply survey data and 30 will be recruited for in depth interviews conducted three times during the research study. Researchers will code the data giving consideration to each individual's experiences as well as search for patterns in the data from individuals within and across each pathway to determine whether there are between-pathway variations. The research will bring in the voices of individuals who pursue engineering degrees following different pathways, including those who may not be retained in their initial pursuit of an engineering degree. This work may reveal some hidden limitations of multiple pathways as a way to diversify engineering graduates in the US. In addition, the research contributions may advance the field of engineering education by taking a systematic and critical look at potentially problematic differences in students' beliefs and identities as a function of their educational pathway.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.