Using Students' Engineering Assets to Drive Professional Identity Formation and Faculty Change

• In Event: Changing the Professional Formation of Engineers: Revolutionizing Engineering and Computer Science Departments

Abstract

Purpose
The Formation of Accomplished Chemical Engineers for Transforming Society (FACETS) project investigates how threading community-, industry-, research-, and entrepreneurial-based design challenges through the curriculum can support development of engineering identity and enhance faculty teaching.

Theoretical framework
When students don’t see engineering as “consistent with their personal identity or sense of self,” they are more likely to leave engineering (Matusovich, Streveler, & Miller, 2010). Providing students with opportunities to develop a sense of intellectual belonging can positively impact their willingness to engage academically and hence, this supports retention (Lichtenstein, Chen, Smith, & Maldonado, 2014; Thomason & Thurber, 1999). But it is also important to recognize that students retain diverse identities—as members of families, communities, and other avocational endeavors. In this way, students’ identities are like crystals with multiple facets. This concept—crystallized self (Tracy & Trethewey, 2005), is a way to talk about identity that interrupts the sense of “real” versus “fake” selves (Tracy & Trethewey, 2005); a student who questions her potential to become a “real” engineer may feel she needs to sacrifice other identities (e.g., mother, artist, or athlete). We build on the notion of crystallized identity by considering how students might come to see their various identities not only as permissible, but as relevant to engineering design. We need to acknowledge the varied ways in which facets of identities can be called into play, serving as assets. Such approaches are successful in engaging Latino/a students in engineering (Mejia, 2014). For instance, researchers first identified the assets Latina/o high school students brought, then connected these to community-engaged design projects (Mejia, 2014; Mejia, Wilson-Lopez, Hailey, Hasbun, & Householder, 2014). Asset-based approaches have been shown to support low income, first-generation college attendees, revealing they bring assets such as the ability to define and solve problems related to limited financial means, and having empathy for marginalized communities (Smith, 2015).

Methods & data sources
Participants include students enrolled in original and revised courses, and the faculty who teach core courses in CBE. We added design challenges to first-year through junior level courses.
Student data includes pre/post surveys on engineering identity and design beliefs, an assessment of problem framing ability, and student work. Faculty data include interviews and observations during faculty meetings, faculty development workshops, and retreats for supporting faculty to develop design challenges. We analyzed student data, first coding student work, then conducting statistical tests of difference to identify student assets, which we shared with the faculty. We conducted regression modeling to compare cohorts of students, before and after introducing design challenges. We coded faculty comments to understand changes in their perceptions of student potential and their commitments to student-centered approaches.

Results & Scholarly significance
We identified multiple engineering assets students from underrepresented groups bring, and shared this with the faculty. Across two years, we find improvements in student identity formation in early courses, increased opportunities for students to enact engineering practices alongside core curricula, and changes in faculty perceptions.

Authors

• Vanessa Svihla, University of New Mexico

• Jamie Gomez, University of New Mexico

• Marina Miletic

• Abhaya Datye

• Pil Sung Kang, University of New Mexico

• Eva Chi

• Sang M Han