Board 260: Engineering Identities in Low-Income Students Across their First Year of College

Ryan Scott Hassler; Catherine L. Cohan; Dawn Pfeifer Pfeifer Reitz; Sonia Delaquito; Janelle B Larson; Rungun Nathan

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Conference: 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Portland, Oregon
Publication Date: June 23, 2024
Start Date: June 23, 2024
End Date: June 26, 2024
Conference Session: NSF Grantees Poster Session
Tagged Topic: NSF Grantees Poster Session
Page Count: 22
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--46833
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/46833
Download Count: 147

Paper Authors

biography

Ryan Scott Hassler Pennsylvania State University, Berks Campus

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Teaching Professor of Mathematics

Research Interests: First Year Engineering Student Success (summer bridge programs); Mathematics retention of underrepresented minority students; Role Identity & Persistence (low-income undergraduate students); Conceptual Understanding (mathematical situation models); Hybrid learning (instructional technology); Early Algebra (textbook analysis)

MS Applied Statistics
PhD Mathematics & Science Education

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biography

Catherine L. Cohan Pennsylvania State University

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Catherine Cohan, Ph.D. has been a research psychologist for over 20 years. Her areas of expertise include engineering education, retention of underrepresented students, measurement, and assessment. She is currently an Assistant Research Professor and coor

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Rungun Nathan Pennsylvania State University, Berks Campus orcid.org/0000-0002-0651-1448

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Rungun Nathan, a professor and program chair for the mechanical engineering department, joined the faculty at Penn State Berks in 2007 as an assistant professor and was promoted in 2012 to associate professor and then to professor in 2021. He has over 25 combined years of increasing responsibilities in industry and in academia, including at the Center for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), a telecommunications technology arm of the Indian government, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc.), Bangalore, and Villanova University, PA.

Nathan has been a very active member of both the Mechanics and Mechanical Engineering Divisions of ASEE since 2006. He started as a member at large and then rose to chair the Mechanics Division in 2012–2013. He was chair of the Mechanical Engineering Division in 2021-22 after starting as member at large in 2017. Nathan also has been an active member of ASEE’s Engineering Technology, Computers in Education, Educational Research Methods, Multidisciplinary Engineering, Experimentation and Laboratory-Oriented Studies, and Systems Engineering Divisions. He also volunteers as a Program Evaluator for ABET accreditation in the EAC and ETAC.

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Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of the Leveraging Innovation and Optimizing Nurturing in STEM Program (NSF S-STEM #2130022, known locally as LION STEM Scholars) is to support the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income engineering scholars with demonstrated financial need at Penn State Berks, a four-year regional undergraduate campus within the larger Pennsylvania State University. Scholars are part of a multi-tiered mentoring program and cohort experience. The LION STEM curricular programs include a math-intensive summer bridge program, a first semester First-Year Seminar, and a second semester STEM-Persistence Seminar. Co-curricular activities focus on professional communication skills, financial literacy, career readiness, undergraduate research, and community engagement. The overall project uses the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI; Kaplan & Garner, 2017), to examine the integrative nature of how Low-Income/College-Student/Future-Engineer role identities contribute to STEM identity for low-income Engineering students. This paper presents data collected from semi-structured (Smith & Osborn, 2007) audio-recorded interviews from the first cohort of LION STEM Scholars (n=4) at three different time points (pre-summer bridge, post-summer bridge, end of first semester) as well as data collected from a written survey at the end of each Scholar’s second semester.

Goals: The LION STEM Scholars program at Penn State Berks seeks to accomplish four goals: (1) adapt, implement, and analyze evidence-based curricular and co-curricular activities to support, retain, and graduate a diverse set of the project's engineering scholars, (2) implement, test, and study through research and project evaluation strategies for systematically supporting student academic and career pathways in STEM, including development of STEM identity, (3) contribute to the knowledge base through investigation of the project's four-year multi-modal program so that other colleges may successfully implement similar programs, and (4) disseminate outcomes and findings related to the supports and interventions that promote student success to other institutions working to support low-income STEM students.

The goal of this paper is to analyze data from a repeated-measures design to provide a holistic narrative about the effects that the academic and support activities offered to LION STEM Scholars have on the development of their Future-Engineer role identity throughout their first year as an undergraduate engineering student. The theoretical framework for this project is the DSMRI, a holistic metatheoretical framework for motivation, engagement and learning through identity development. Specifically, this paper will explore the ontological and epistemological beliefs, purpose and goals, self-perceptions and self-definitions, and perceived-action possibilities for the Future-Engineer role identities of the LION STEM Scholars throughout their first year of college.

Method: Audio-recorded interviews were conducted and transcribed from each of n=4 students from the first cohort of LION STEM Scholars at three points in time: (1) pre-summer bridge; (2) post-summer bridge; (3) end of first semester. In addition, a written survey was also given to the scholars at the end of their second semester. Taken together, this repeated-measures design will form the basis for an interpretative phenomenological analysis, which is an in-depth exploration of how a participant perceives and makes sense of their personal and social world. Specifically, analysis will involve identifying superordinate themes across the narratives of all scholars, which will provide valuable insight on the development of Future-Engineer identity for high-achieving, low-income first year engineering students.

Results: Data analysis is being conducted currently.

Conclusions: Conclusions are pending following completion of data analysis.

Citation
Format

Hassler, R. S., & Cohan, C. L., & Pfeifer Reitz, D. P., & Delaquito, S., & Larson, J. B., & Nathan, R. (2024, June), Board 260: Engineering Identities in Low-Income Students Across their First Year of College Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--46833

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Purpose: The purpose of the Leveraging Innovation and Optimizing Nurturing in STEM Program (NSF S-STEM #2130022, known locally as LION STEM Scholars) is to support the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income engineering scholars with demonstrated financial need at Penn State Berks, a four-year regional undergraduate campus within the larger Pennsylvania State University. Scholars are part of a multi-tiered mentoring program and cohort experience. The LION STEM curricular programs include a math-intensive summer bridge program, a first semester First-Year Seminar, and a second semester STEM-Persistence Seminar. Co-curricular activities focus on professional communication skills, financial literacy, career readiness, undergraduate research, and community engagement. The overall project uses the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI; Kaplan &amp;amp; Garner, 2017), to examine the integrative nature of how Low-Income/College-Student/Future-Engineer role identities contribute to STEM identity for low-income Engineering students. This paper presents data collected from semi-structured (Smith &amp;amp; Osborn, 2007) audio-recorded interviews from the first cohort of LION STEM Scholars (n=4) at three different time points (pre-summer bridge, post-summer bridge, end of first semester) as well as data collected from a written survey at the end of each Scholar’s second semester. 

Goals: The LION STEM Scholars program at Penn State Berks seeks to accomplish four goals: (1) adapt, implement, and analyze evidence-based curricular and co-curricular activities to support, retain, and graduate a diverse set of the project&#39;s engineering scholars, (2) implement, test, and study through research and project evaluation strategies for systematically supporting student academic and career pathways in STEM, including development of STEM identity, (3)  contribute to the knowledge base through investigation of the project&#39;s four-year multi-modal program so that other colleges may successfully implement similar programs, and (4) disseminate outcomes and findings related to the supports and interventions that promote student success to other institutions working to support low-income STEM students. 

The goal of this paper is to analyze data from a repeated-measures design to provide a holistic narrative about the effects that the academic and support activities offered to LION STEM Scholars have on the development of their Future-Engineer role identity throughout their first year as an undergraduate engineering student. The theoretical framework for this project is the DSMRI, a holistic metatheoretical framework for motivation, engagement and learning through identity development. Specifically, this paper will explore the ontological and epistemological beliefs, purpose and goals, self-perceptions and self-definitions, and perceived-action possibilities for the Future-Engineer role identities of the LION STEM Scholars throughout their first year of college. 

Method: Audio-recorded interviews were conducted and transcribed from each of n=4 students from the first cohort of LION STEM Scholars at three points in time: (1) pre-summer bridge; (2) post-summer bridge; (3) end of first semester. In addition, a written  
survey was also given to the scholars at the end of their second semester. Taken together, this repeated-measures design will form the basis for an interpretative phenomenological analysis, which is an in-depth exploration of how a participant perceives and makes sense of their personal and social world. Specifically, analysis will involve identifying superordinate themes across the narratives of all scholars, which will provide valuable insight on the development of Future-Engineer identity for high-achieving, low-income first year engineering students.

Results: Data analysis is being conducted currently. 

Conclusions: Conclusions are pending following completion of data analysis. 

AU  - Ryan Scott Hassler
AU  - Catherine L. Cohan
AU  - Dawn Pfeifer Pfeifer Reitz
AU  - Sonia Delaquito
AU  - Janelle B Larson
AU  - Rungun Nathan
CY  - Portland, Oregon
DA  - 2024/06/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Board 260: Engineering Identities in Low-Income Students Across their First Year of College
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/46833
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--46833
ER  -