Research: RFE—Understanding graduate engineering student well-being for prediction of retention

博士生经常离开工程专业，从而减少了美国训练有素的工程师的供应，并导致博士生学费投资的损失。研究生面临许多压力：来自课堂作业，来自他们的有偿教学和研究承诺，以及来自研究生工作之外的其他压力源。在这项关于工程师形成的研究中，我们将确定博士级工程学生通常面临的主要压力源，创建并验证一份问卷来测量这些压力源，并测试压力如何预测学生离开博士课程的意图。该项目使用了一个工作场所压力模型，在该模型中，对工作障碍（例如课程可用性、毕业要求、COVID-19）的控制不足会导致有害的压力。这项研究的结果可以为支持工程博士生的项目和人员提供广泛的信息，包括教师顾问和工程部门、咨询中心、职业中心、写作中心等。虽然之前的研究工作已经确定了主要的压力源，但很少有研究对研究生博士研究生的压力源和这些压力源对记忆的影响进行比较。有了研究支持的主要压力源及其影响的识别，上述利益相关者可以被授权采取计划性变化或其他策略，主动解决我们将确定的压力源。我们对博士生压力源的测量可以被其他大学广泛实施，以确定哪些地方需要更多的支持，扩大现有的支持，以及其他研究人员试图了解压力对STEM教育的影响。该项目的目标是确定博士生在工程博士课程的不同阶段的最大压力源，并预测最大压力源对这些项目的保留的影响。在第一年，我们将采访一组不同的学生（N = 57）关于压力源和应对，以确定哪些压力源发生最频繁，并被参与者认为是最有害的。参与者还将完成关于压力和焦虑的现有问卷，我们将对这些变量在一学年中的变化进行建模。在二年级，我们将根据一年级的工作结果，开发一份新的调查问卷，测量顶级压力源的效价和频率。我们将对工科博士生进行认知访谈，以找出任何令人困惑的项目，并改进问卷。在此之后，我们将以300名不同样本的工程博士生对二年级问卷的心理测量学进行测试。在第三年，我们将使用新验证的测量，以及其他现有的压力和焦虑测量，来预测学生离开博士工程项目的意图（N = 300）。该项目的结果将是发现不同群体的不同压力源的患病率（例如，工程中代表性不足的群体，博士研究的早期/中期/后期，国内与国际博士生），项目和研究人员广泛使用的有效问卷，以及压力对留在博士工程项目的意图的影响的估计。将向公众提供技术手册和调查结果的非技术说明，并在以研究和实践为重点的会议上作介绍。最新消息将在PI的网站上公布。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。

Doctoral students frequently leave engineering, thereby reducing the supply of highly-trained engineers in the US and contributing to lost tuition investments made for doctoral student tuition. Graduate students face many stresses: from classwork, from their paid teaching and research commitments, and from other stressors outside of their graduate work. In this research on the formation of engineers, we will identify major stressors that PhD-level engineering students commonly face, create and validate a questionnaire to measure these stressors, and test how stress can predict students’ intentions to leave their doctoral programs. The project uses a workplace stress model in which having low control over job hindrances (e.g. course availability, graduation requirements, COVID-19) leads to harmful stress. The results of this study can inform a wide range of programs and personnel who support doctoral engineering students, including faculty advisors and engineering departments, counselling centers, career centers, writing centers, and others. Although prior research work has identified major stressors, little work has been done to compare sources of stress for graduate PhD students and the effects of these stressors on retention. With a research-backed identification of major stressors and their effects, these stakeholders above can be empowered to adopt programmatic changes or other strategies proactively addressing the stressors we will identify. The measure of doctoral students’ stressors that we produce can be broadly implemented by other universities to identify where more supports are needed, to expand available supports, and by other researchers seeking to understand effects of stress on STEM education.The goals of the project are to identify top stressors for doctoral students across different phases of engineering PhD programs and to predict the effects of top stressors on retention in those programs. In Year 1, we will interview a diverse set of students (N = 57) about stressors and coping, to identify which sources of stress occur the most frequently and are perceived by participants as being the most harmful. Participants will also complete existing questionnaires on stress and anxiety, and we will model changes in those variables over an academic year. In Year 2, we will develop a new questionnaire measuring the valence and frequency of top stressors, based on our results from work in Year 1. We will conduct cognitive interviews with doctoral engineering students to identify any confusing items and improve the questionnaire. Following this, we will test the psychometrics of the questionnaire in Year 2 with a diverse sample of 300 doctoral engineering students. In year 3, we will use the newly validated measure, together with other existing measures of stress and anxiety, to predict students’ intention of leaving a doctoral engineering program (N = 300). Outcomes of the project will be findings about the prevalence of different stressors by groups (e.g., groups under-represented in engineering, early/middle/late in doctoral studies, domestic vs. international PhD students), a validated questionnaire widely usable by programs and researchers, and estimates of the effect of stress on intention to remain in a doctoral engineering program. A technical manual and non-technical descriptions of the findings will be made available to the public, together with presentations at research- and practice-focused conferences. Updates will be available on the PI’s website.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.