Research Initiation: Infusing Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) at the Start of the Engineering Mechanics Curriculum

在技术挑战日益复杂、社会不平等现象比比皆是的时代，工程专业的学生正在进入这个行业。然而，有无数的例子表明，工程专业已经不能满足这个日益多样化的社会的需求。例如，面部识别安全软件无法唯一识别非裔美国人和亚洲人的面孔，其识别率是白人面孔的10到100倍。另一方面，人工智能系统在避碰场景的算法决策中将残疾人误解为“障碍”，而不是“人类”。在这些例子中，一个反复出现的主题是工程师设计的工件满足了大多数人的需求，而未能满足代表性不足的群体的需求。这些不平等并非仅仅是由工程专业故意造成的；更确切地说，许多专业人士——其中包括工程师——根本不知道或不承认他们的决策和决策过程对非主导群体的全部影响。这种思维上的缺陷必须得到挑战，这样美国才能在课程、设计过程和专业实践中发现与扩大参与和视角有关的各种机会。该项目将为教学实践提供证据，旨在拓宽学生的思维方式，在工程力学入门课程的背景下，对社会不平等持更批判的态度。该研究将由工程地层研究领域的新PI领导，PI将由教育研究员指导和指导研究方法，这与RIEF项目的目标一致，即启动新的研究人员进入工程地层研究，以满足动态和多样化的劳动力需求。开展这样的研究有望实现新的教学实践，从而影响教师和学生成为变革推动者的能力。该项目还将为支持课堂和工作场所的包容性实践提供证据，这有助于应对日益复杂和多样化的社会需求。在本研究中，课程干预将以文化相关教学法（CRP）框架为基础，并探索其在目标课程中培养工程学生变革主体心态的能力：静力学和动力学——这是工程力学课程的典型切入点。混合方法（顺序设计）方法将被用来衡量学生的态度、看法和在满足CRP的三个原则方面的成功，即学生学业成就、社会文化（或多元文化）能力和批判意识的发展。学生心态发展的程度将通过三个具体的研究问题来衡量：1)干预在多大程度上改变了学生的学业准备；2)干预后学生的多元文化能力和种族态度如何发展；3)学生对工程学中社会、环境和经济正义问题的认识如何受到干预的影响？在社会科学文献中发现的有效工具的混合将用于定量回答这些研究问题。将进行焦点小组，以产生定性叙述，为定量措施增加价值和洞察力。本研究的结果将为教学实践的干预设计提供有价值的知识，以促进包容性和批判性意识的教学实践。本研究的总体目标是探讨当课程干预以CRP框架为基础时，课程干预对提高工科学生变革倡导心态的能力。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Engineering students are entering the profession at a time when technical challenges are increasingly complex and societal inequities abound. There are countless examples, though, where the engineering profession has not met the needs of this increasingly diverse society. In one example, facial recognition security software is failing to uniquely identify African-American and Asian faces at rates of 10 to 100 times higher than Caucasian faces. In another, artificial intelligence systems misconstrue disabled persons as ‘obstacles’ rather than as ‘humans’ in algorithmic decisions in collision avoidance scenarios. A recurring theme in these examples is engineers designing artifacts that meet the needs of the majority while failing to meet the needs of underrepresented groups. These inequities are not intentionally fueled by the engineering profession alone; rather, they are fueled by many of the professions – engineering among them – simply not knowing or acknowledging the full ramification of their decisions and decision-making processes toward non-dominant groups. This shortcoming in mindset must be challenged so that the United States can uncover the full range of opportunities associated with broadening both participation and perspectives in curricula, design processes, and professional practices. This project will generate evidence toward a teaching practice that seeks to broaden students’ mindset to be more critical of societal inequities in the context of an introductory engineering mechanics course. The study will be led by a PI who is new to the field of engineering formation research, and the PI will be mentored and guided through research methods by an education researcher, which aligns with the RIEF program’s goals of initiating new researchers into engineering formation research that seeks to meet the needs of the dynamic and diverse workforce. Undertaking such research holds the promise of realizing new teaching practices that influence both instructors’ and students’ ability to emerge as change agents. This project will also provide evidence to support inclusive practices in the classroom and in the workplace, which helps respond to the needs of an increasingly complex and diverse society.In this study, a curricular intervention will be grounded in a culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) framework and explored for its ability to foster a change-agent mindset in engineering students in a targeted course: statics and dynamics – which is the typical entry point to the engineering mechanics curriculum. A mixed-methods (sequential design) approach will be used to measure student attitudes, perceptions, and successes in meeting the three tenets of CRP, namely the development of students’ academic achievement, sociocultural (or multicultural) competence, and critical consciousness. The extent of students’ mindset development will be measured by three specific research questions: 1) to what extent does the intervention shift students’ academic preparedness; 2) how are students’ multicultural competence and racial attitudes developed as a result of the intervention; and 3) how are students’ sense of social-, environmental-, and economic-justice issues in engineering influenced by the intervention? A blend of validated instruments found in the social sciences literature will be used to quantitively answer those research questions. Focus groups will be conducted to generate qualitative narratives that add value and insight to the quantitative measures. The outcomes of this study will generate valuable knowledge in this intervention’s design toward teaching practices that foster inclusive and critically conscious teaching and learning practices. The overall goal of this research is to explore a curricular intervention’s ability to enhance engineering students’ mindset toward change advocacy when the intervention is grounded in a CRP framework.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.