Conference Session

CEED Paper Session 1: Using Co-Op and Internships to Improve Diversity, Retention, Learning, and Assessment

Collection

2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Katelyn Elizabeth Gunderson, Rochester Institute of Technology; Margaret B. Bailey P.E., Rochester Institute of Technology ; Joseph A. Raelin, Northeastern University; Jamie Ladge; Robert Garrick, Rochester Institute of Technology

Tagged Topics

Diversity

Tagged Divisions

Cooperative & Experiential Education

programs. By using a qualitative interview-based approach, our goal was tofurther refine and build upon findings from the quantitative Pathways I study. Quantitativestudies do not allow for the more in-depth, nuanced accounts of human behavior that are likelyaccessible through qualitative approaches.4 Furthermore, Pathways I relied on a data poolcomposed predominately of male students and did not involve questions specifically regardingthe experiences of women. Extending interviews to include engineers in their first eighteenmonths as full-time employees serves to gain valuable insights into if and how co-op experiencesimpacted their decision to remain in their respective undergraduate engineering programs.Interview questions for the pilot study