How Does the College of Engineering Make Student Accounts Consequential?

• In Event: 60.065 - Decentering Dominant Discourses and Reimagining Privileged Spaces in STEM Education

Abstract

Objectives
The purpose of this study is to examine how admissions officers in the College of Engineering classify potential students based on personal accounts. Students who participated in this study are members of the Strive Program, which recognizes the potential of nondominant students in engineering. This study reveals how practices within admissions work to privilege the status quo and reinforce a structure that marginalizes students from nondominant backgrounds.

Theoretical Framework
Drawing on the work of Mills (1940) and Lynch (1996), I analyzed my data using the ethnomethodological concept of “vocabularies of motive.” This framework shows that motives exist within accounts, rather than existing inside an individual. Instead of the meritocratic notion that individuals are responsible for their own success through characteristics like grit and perseverance, a “vocabularies of motive” approach shows that institutions often sort individuals through perceived personality characteristics. An analysis of ethnographic data through this lens challenges the work that admissions officers do to classify students. It also complicates the notion that it is possible to determine how successful a student will be based on a personal account of motivation. Moreover, this framework allows for a critical examination of how everyday practices within the College of Engineering impact nondominant students.

Methods
Over one school year, I relied on ethnographic research methods, including interviews and focus groups with 24 out of 31 freshmen in the Strive program. The interviews and focus groups were open-ended and revealed dilemmas students in the program faced during their first year in the program. I conducted eight classroom observations in a first-year Engineering Projects class that contained four students in the Strive Program. I interviewed a former Strive admissions officer and observed six meetings with former Strive coordinators.

Findings
Admission officers interpret motivation as an internal human characteristic. If a student is not deemed admissible to the College of Engineering based on academic merit, admissions officers attempt to determine whether an applicant demonstrates “motivation.” Motivation accounts are institutionally consequential because they force nondominant students to take on a deficit perspective of themselves to “make up” for their perceived lack of academic achievement. Characteristics such as “motivation” are located within particular accounts, rather than inside the individual. Students rely on situationally-dependent, sometimes overlapping vocabularies of motive to account for their lives. Each student in the Strive Program had to use a vocabulary of motive that indicated motivation, often through personal setbacks that they have encountered. This reveals that particular types of accounts are institutionally preferred and work to reinforce a hegemonic structure in the College of Engineering.

Significance
When an institution such as college admissions deems an individual “motivated” or “academically successful,” that individual must live with those consequences. Students from nondominant backgrounds are positioned as having a deficit for which an account of motivation is considered necessary for admission to the College of Engineering. Students in the Strive Program demonstrated qualities that cut across multiple categories, showing the need for a more critical examination of everyday practices that disproportionately impact underrepresented students in engineering.

Author

• Julie Cafarella, University of Colorado - Boulder