Collection

2011 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

Lily Gossage

sequential designs within a mixed methods approach[4], a variety of research techniques was employed to elicit students’ views and attitudes. Afocus group of five Latino/Hispanic students was asked about their perceptions and attitudesregarding the climate within an engineering college. From their responses emerged 10 themes,collapsed into six dimensions; these were later used to construct a nine-item survey instrumentdeployed to over 150 Latino/Hispanic engineering students. In asking whether Latino/Hispanicengineering students felt disconnected to the general student population and to the engineeringdiscipline, the study also investigated the extent to which self-segregation occurred across otherethnic/racial groups. Questions were primarily

Collection

2011 Pacific Southwest Section Meeting

Authors

University, Prescott campus, and inpart because this course is both writing intensive and presentation intensive and students couldbenefit from supplementary COM instruction. Moreover, it later became apparent that due to thedemanding nature of this course, students are often stressed and this stress can lead tointerpersonal conflicts between team members. It was thus argued that students could benefitfrom supplementary COM instruction in conflict negotiation and resolution. By inviting a COMinstructor into the senior design course, COM support could be deeply embedded in the students'capstone experience, providing timely instruction just before graduation. In order to maximizethe COM instructor's understanding of the engineering students' needs