Developing a Departmental Climate Scale for Engineering Doctoral Students

• In Event: Toward Inclusion: Educational Climate in Professions Education

Abstract

This paper describes the ongoing development of a multi-factor organizational climate scale for engineering doctoral students. Organizational science combined with an intersectional approach can help identify the climates contributing to students’ organizational commitment and retention, especially among students from historically-excluded groups. Following initial scale development and testing and phenomenological interviews in 2023, we administered a revised scale to n = 288 students from 12 U.S. institutions in 2024. The revised scale comprised 43 items assessing eight focused climates. Exploratory factor analysis identified six latent factors with 36 items, showing excellent internal consistency reliability. Results from this scale can be used to indicate the specific policies, practices, and procedures that shape doctoral student retention at the department level.

Authors

• So Yoon Yoon, University of Cincinnati

• Nicole M. Else-Quest, University of California - Los Angeles

• Julie Aldridge, The Ohio State University

• Joseph Roy, American Society for Engineering Education