"Hey, I See You're Pretty Unhappy in My Lab Group, Why Don't You Leave?"

• In Event: Change Is Hard: Transitions Into and Through Engineering Graduate Education

Abstract

Research within engineering education has examined the reasons why students leave or stay within their doctoral engineering program. However, limited research has focused on the experiences of engineering graduate students who, despite experiencing race or gender-based discrimination in their program, choose to persist in graduate education by transitioning into other research groups, programs, or institutions. As part of a larger multiphase research project examining the influence of gender and race-based discrimination on engineering identity and persistence in graduate education, this paper examines students’ experiences with transitioning to other lab groups. We interviewed engineering doctoral students in 2019 and again in 2022 to understand the ways their experiences of gender and race-based discrimination influenced their identities during their time in graduate school.
We analyzed the interview transcripts with thematic analysis to make sense of their responses about COVID, advisors and peers, engineering identity, and gender and race-based discriminatory experiences and observations. A codebook developed from the 2019 interviews was adapted after collecting interview data in 2022 to capture emergent codes. Next, codes were consolidated to generate higher-level themes. In this paper, we examine the perceptions and experiences of changing labs for six students talked about changing labs while in their doctoral program, and two more who strongly considered leaving their research labs.
When discussing their reasons for considering or acting on changing labs the students discussed the themes of funding, gender-based discrimination, race-based discrimination, and expectations as reasons in their decision. Funding as a theme included any situations involving a loss of funding (e.g., project ending, faculty leaving institution) or that students financially were not supported by their faculty or institution. Gender-based discrimination and race-based discrimination involved unfair treatment by peers, advisors, and postdoctoral fellows within the lab. Expectations included perceptions the participant had about their advisors’ requests or demands regarding their performance or commitment to the project (e.g., spending an average of 60 hours in the lab per week). Important to note is that while the themes of expectations and discrimination were often related because both experiences described are grounded in a lack of respect for the student, the implications of the different experiences required separate codes.
Across all the students’ narratives, an important implication is that none of the students in our sample expressed negative outcomes from changing labs, only positive outcomes. Because switching labs is not always known as an option, this work highlights a need to communicate this alternative to students who are trapped in a toxic work environment. By exploring the ways students talked about their experiences we provide insight into how the persist at all costs belief perpetuated in graduated education results in students accepting disrespect and unfair treatment as part of the process for getting an advanced degree.

Authors

• Derrick James Satterfield, University of Nevada - Reno
  Presenting Author

• Adam Kirn, University of Nevada - Reno
  Non-Presenting Author

• Elan Hope, North Carolina State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Matthew Bahnson, Pennsylvania State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mackenzie Parker, University of Nevada - Reno
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kaitlyn Thomas, University of Nevada - Reno
  Non-Presenting Author

• Laila Allam, North Carolina State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Alexis Briggs, North Carolina State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Anitra Alexander, North Carolina State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Erin Keith, St. Francis Xavier University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kelsey Scalaro, University of Nevada - Reno
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kiara Steinhorst, University of Nevada - Reno
  Non-Presenting Author