Brunhaver, S. R., & Gilmartin, S. K., & Chen, H. L., & Matusovich, H. M., & Sheppard, S. (2015, June), Comparing Disparate Outcome Measures for Better Understanding of Engineering Graduates  Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.23710

\bibitem{asee_peer_23710}
  Brunhaver, S. R., \& Gilmartin, S. K., \& Chen, H. L., \& Matusovich, H. M., \& Sheppard, S. (2015, June), \emph{Comparing Disparate Outcome Measures for Better Understanding of Engineering Graduates}
  Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Seattle, Washington.
  10.18260/p.23710

Samantha Ruth Brunhaver, Shannon Katherine Gilmartin, Helen L. Chen, Holly M Matusovich, and Sheri Sheppard.  "Comparing Disparate Outcome Measures for Better Understanding of Engineering Graduates".  2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington, 2015, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2015.  https://peer.asee.org/23710 Internet.  24 Apr, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_23710}
  Samantha Ruth Brunhaver, Shannon Katherine Gilmartin, Helen L. Chen, Holly M Matusovich, and Sheri Sheppard.
  "Comparing Disparate Outcome Measures for Better Understanding of Engineering Graduates".
  \emph{2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Seattle, Washington, 2015, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2015.
  https://peer.asee.org/23710 Internet.  24 Apr, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_23710
author = "Samantha Ruth Brunhaver, Shannon Katherine Gilmartin, Helen L. Chen, Holly M Matusovich, and Sheri Sheppard"
title = "Comparing Disparate Outcome Measures for Better Understanding of Engineering Graduates"
booktitle = "2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2015"
month = "June"
address = "Seattle, Washington"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/23710}
number = {10.18260/p.23710}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Comparing Disparate Outcome Measures for Better Understanding of Engineering GraduatesInformation about (and from) engineering graduates is gathered for many purposes and in many ways.Federal government agencies survey graduates about their employment and graduate school attainmentsin order to make projections and policy. Engineering programs report graduates’ importance andpreparedness ratings of the ABET a-k outcomes relative to their current job for the purposes ofdemonstrating continuous improvement. In addition, many researchers have asked graduates whether theysee their job or identity as “engineer” in order to classify them as retained or not retained in theengineering workforce. In each scenario, there are strengths and limitations to what the informationcollected can reveal about the current state of engineering education and practice. For example, whilegraduates’ occupations and fields of study connote specific meaning and are easy to understand,measuring engineering retention along these lines excludes those who may use their engineeringbackground in non-traditional contexts. A deeper understanding of engineering graduates’ roles andidentities could result from comparing multiple measures of their post-graduation outcomes, and yet, datawith which to make such comparisons have been scarce.This paper presents findings from an online, NSF-sponsored survey of recent engineering bachelor’sgraduates that was created (in part) to address this issue. In addition to questions about their precollegeand college experiences, survey participants responded to measures about their current level ofengagement with engineering and their undergraduate engineering education. These measures wereborrowed from previous literature on engineering graduate outcomes and asked participants to reflect on(1) their current (or most recent) occupation, (2) their perceptions of their current position as engineeringor non-engineering, (3) their engineering identity, (4) their engineering self-efficacy, (5) the importanceof engineering competencies to their work, and (6) the relatedness between their current position andundergraduate education.The survey was deployed in autumn of 2011 to engineering graduates four years out from earning theirbachelor’s degrees from four U.S. institutions. The survey received 484 responses, representing 26percent of the mail-out sample and 19 percent of all 2007 engineering bachelor’s graduates across the fourschools. For this study, participants’ responses to the engineering-related measures described above wereexamined and compared using non-parametric statistical tests, as appropriate. Prior to analysis, the samplewas weighted for varying institutional sampling rates and individual nonresponse bias to approximateresponses had all invited graduates participated.Preliminary results show that more engineering graduates perceived their current position as engineering(versus non-engineering) than marked that they had an engineering occupation or were enrolled in agraduate engineering degree program. Graduates’ engineering identity, engineering self-efficacy, andratings of the importance of engineering competencies to their work were also more positively andsignificantly correlated with their self-perceptions of doing engineering rather than with their actualemployment or enrollment statuses. Perceived relatedness between graduates’ current position andundergraduate education did not track with their perceived or actual participation in engineeringwork/studies, however, and ratings of perceived relatedness were uniformly low across respondents.These results suggest that engineering programs are successful in instilling students with a strong sense ofengineering self-concept but less successful in showing students how their engineering education appliesto “real-life”. Implications for engineering education, policy, and professional practice will be discussed.
AU  - Samantha Ruth Brunhaver
AU  - Shannon Katherine Gilmartin
AU  - Helen L. Chen
AU  - Holly M Matusovich
AU  - Sheri Sheppard
CY  - Seattle, Washington
DA  - 2015/06/14
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Comparing Disparate Outcome Measures for Better Understanding of Engineering Graduates
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/23710
DO  - 10.18260/p.23710
ER  -