A Comparative Study of the Cultural Costs Affecting Black Engineering Students' Academic and Career Pathways

• In Event: Motivated Students, Motivating Contexts: Building Clarity About the Nature and Mechanisms of Motivational Climate

Abstract

Purpose. Low enrollment, retention, and graduation rates of Black engineering students in the United States are a cause for concern (Hernandez et al., 2013). Therefore, the objective of this study is to understand the contextually situated nature of cultural costs that shape Black engineering students academic and professional trajectories at Predominantly White Institutions (PWI) versus Historically Black Universities (HBCU).

Theoretical framework. Expectancy-Value theory (EVT) of motivation (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002) provides a framework for examining Black students’ valuing of the profession and their expectations of success in the program. Proponents of EVT have expanded the theory to emphasize the situated nature of expectancies and values (Eccles & Wigfield, 2020). Still others have emphasized the importance of cost as an equally critical component of the theory (Flake et al., 2015; Johnson & Safavian, 2016). Cost has been operationalized as “subjective estimate of loss” (Luttrell et al., 2010). Perez, Cromley, and Kaplan (2014) uncovered three dimensions of cost: psychological cost, effort cost, and opportunity cost. We argue that sociocultural dimensions of cost have been neglected in the expectancy-value-cost (EVC) framework. Cultural costs are contextually situated phenomena contingent on the invalidation or validation of individuals’ complex collective identities and values (Archer et al., 2021) that may inhibit individuals from pursuing valued tasks and careers (Kumar et al., 2018). Consequently, the study’s research questions are (1) What are the cultural costs incurred by Black students in PWI vs HBCU? and (2) Are cultural costs linked to students subjective valuing of the profession and their expectation of academic and professional success?

Methodology. Sixty-five Black undergraduate engineering students (79% male) from a PWI and a HBCU were selected utilizing stratified random sampling to participate in 11 focus group interviews (NHBCU =6; NPWI =5). The interview protocol included questions regarding perceptions of the campus and engineering college context including faculty’s cultural sensitivity and cultural responsiveness, perceptions of stereotyping and discrimination in societal and institutional contexts, their experiences of cultural dissonance and sense of belonging on campus and within the professional engineering community. Open-ended questions provided interviewees opportunities for frank discussion about issues and concerns (Creswall & Creswall, 2014; Kitzinger, 1995). We utilized a qualitative phenomenological approach to conduct a comparative analysis of the experiences of PWI and HBCU engineering students.

Results. Preliminary findings show that Black engineering students in PWI incur a heavier cultural cost (higher levels of dissonance and belonging uncertainty and greater stereotype threat) than their counterparts in HBCU; PWI Black students relative to HBCU students report lower expectations of academic success. Black students at HBCU expressed greater concerns about their job prospects; a cultural cost of being Black in an HBCU institution.

Scholarly significance. Comparative analysis of the interviews from PWI and HBCU participants demonstrates the situated nature of cultural costs and their role in shaping Black engineering students’ academic and professional trajectories. Of significance, finding from this study demonstrates the rich multidimensional conception of factors cultural cost to factors such as cultural dissonance, belonging uncertainty, and stereotype threat.

Authors

• Revathy Kumar, University of Toledo

• Aaron Allen Baker, University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point