Addressing Demographic Disparities in Students Choice of Engineering Disciplines (ADDS-CoED)

国家科学基金会的一个战略目标是增加工程领域的多样性，提高专业水平，为所有人增加机会，更好地利用美国的人力资源。然而，多年的努力取得了有限的成功：从大学的本科工程专业开始，女性和少数民族学生的人数仍然严重不足。大多数代表性不足是由于少数工程学科（特别是航空航天、机械、采矿、电气和计算机工程）的多样性长期极低。相比之下，其他专业（如生物医学和环境工程）基本处于性别平等状态。种族多样性也显示出类似的模式。亚利桑那大学的初步数据表明，这是由于女性和少数族裔学生对这些学科的兴趣程度低得不成比例。该项目将在缺乏多样性的个别学科层面上，试行一种增加工程多样性的新方法。我们进一步假设，如果与社会利益有更大的联系，女性和少数族裔对采矿和航空航天工程的兴趣就会增加。最初，调查小组将在亚利桑那大学工程学院进行调查和访谈，以衡量学生对工程学科兴趣水平的人口统计学差异。我们将在亚利桑那大学对两个特定的非多样化学科（采矿和航空航天工程）进行混合方法干预研究，以检验这些假设。基线数据（调查、访谈）将在第一年继续收集。然后，对两个低多样性专业（航空航天和采矿工程）进行有针对性的干预，将检查当入门课程和招聘材料改变以强调其社会有益方面以及抽象工程时，女性和西班牙裔学生的兴趣和代表性是否会增加。二年级的干预措施将重新调整采矿工程入门课程，以及为采矿和航空航天工程学生提供的招聘材料，以更多地解决这两个学科对社会有益的方面。与非干预组（机械、电气、计算机工程）相比，在项目过程中对学生进行的调查和访谈将评估女性和少数族裔（主要是西班牙裔）学生对采矿和航空航天工程兴趣的变化。干预措施将在项目的第3-4年保持到位，同时收集更多数据。如果成功，这个项目可以指出在最需要的特定工程学科水平上提高工程多样性的方法。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。

One NSF strategic goal is increasing the diversity of engineering as a field, to enhance the profession, increase opportunities for all demographics, and make better use of America’s human resources. However, years of effort have had limited success: women and ethnic minority students remain severely underrepresented, starting with undergraduate engineering programs at universities. Most of the underrepresentation is due to chronic extremely low diversity in a few of the engineering disciplines (aerospace, mechanical, mining, electrical, and computer engineering in particular). In contrast, others (e.g. biomedical and environmental engineering) are roughly at gender parity. Ethnic diversity shows analogous patterns. Preliminary data from the University of Arizona suggest that this is due to female and minority students’ disproportionately low levels of interest in these disciplines. This project will pilot a new approach to increasing diversity in engineering, at the level of individual disciplines where diversity is lacking. We further hypothesize that female and minority interest in mining and aerospace engineering would increase if they were presented with a greater connection to social benefit. Initially, the investigative team will carry out surveys and interviews at the University of Arizona College of Engineering to measure preexisting demographic differences in students’ levels of interest in engineering disciplines. We will test these hypotheses with a mixed-methods intervention study focused on two specific non-diverse disciplines (mining and aerospace engineering) at the University of Arizona. Baseline data (surveys, interviews) will continue to be collected in Year 1. Then, a targeted intervention to two low-diversity majors (aerospace and mining engineering) will examine whether female and Hispanic students’ interest and representation increases when introductory courses and recruitment materials change to emphasize their socially beneficial aspects as well as abstract engineering. Interventions in Year 2 will reorient the introductory mining engineering course, and the recruitment materials given to students for both mining and aerospace engineering, to address more of the socially beneficial aspects of both disciplines. Surveys and interviews with students over the course of the project will evaluate changes in women and minority (mainly Hispanic) students’ interest in mining and aerospace engineering, compared to the non-intervention group (mechanical, electrical, computer engineering). Interventions will remain in place for Years 3-4 of the project while additional data are collected. If successful, this project can point the way to improving diversity in engineering at the level of the specific engineering disciplines where it is most needed.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.