Board 423: What Drives You? Exploring the Motivations and Goals of Low-Income Engineering Transfer Students for Pursuing Engineering

Anna-Lena Dicke; Athena Wong; David A. Copp; Analia E. Rao; Lorenzo Valdevit

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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 Topics: Diversity and NSF Grantees Poster Session
Page Count: 13
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--47013
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/47013
Download Count: 65

Paper Authors

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Anna-Lena Dicke University of California, Irvine orcid.org/0000-0001-8816-455X

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Dr. Dicke is an Associate Project Scientist within the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine. In her research, she aims to understand how students’ motivation and interest in the STEM fields can be fostered to secure their educational persistence and long-term career success. Trying to bridge the gap between theory and practice, she is currently involved in an NSF-funded project aimed at fostering the persistence and retention of low-income engineering transfer students.

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Athena Wong University of California, Irvine

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David A. Copp University of California, Irvine orcid.org/0000-0002-5206-5223

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David A. Copp received the B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Arizona and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Teaching at the University of California, Irvine in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Prior to joining UCI, he was a Senior Member of the Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories and an adjunct faculty member in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of New Mexico. His broad research interests include engineering education, as well as control and optimization of nonlinear and hybrid systems with applications to power and energy systems, multi-agent systems, robotics, and biomedicine. He is a recipient of UCSB's Center for Control, Dynamical Systems, and Computation Best PhD Thesis award and a UCI Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research Mentorship.

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Analia E. Rao University of California, Irvine

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Lorenzo Valdevit

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Abstract

The diverse group of students served by community colleges holds great potential in contributing to the desired diversification of the engineering workforce (Fay, 2022). However, more effective support for community college students transferring to four-year institutions is needed to ensure their success (Strickland, 2018), as transfer students commonly experience a “transfer shock” when transitioning from community colleges to four-year bachelor-degree awarding institutions. This can affect their academic achievement, retention, and degree attainment negatively (Elliot & Lakin, 2016, Smith et al., 2022, Zhang, 2019). One way to assist transfer students in the transition from community colleges to four-year institutions is the provision of structured support programs, such as NSF’s S-STEM programs. However, to develop the best support system possible, we need to have a clear understanding of what drives students to engage in engineering in the first place, what obstacles they might be perceiving in their path to success, and what unique assets and experiences they bring to engineering. In the current study, we are investigating students’ motivations for pursuing engineering, being part of a scholarship program, the obstacles they are perceiving and the goals they are ultimately looking to achieve. To this end, we analyzed data collected from 122 students in an S-STEM scholarship program for low-income engineering transfer students. As part of the scholarship program application process, students submitted essays discussing their career goals, their motivation for joining the scholarship program and the obstacles they are perceiving for their future success. Using thematic analysis, essays were analyzed for prominent emergent themes. Results revealed a nuanced picture of students’ manifold career goals, the challenges they encounter along their career path as well the needs students hope to address by joining a scholarship program. In addition, they possess unique assets that will support their success. Having a deeper understanding on what drives the students involved in the scholarship, their needs and assets will allow us to improve and create better support programs to help and empower engineering students from diverse backgrounds to persist in their degree programs and future advanced study and engineering careers.

Citation
Format

Dicke, A., & Wong, A., & Copp, D. A., & Rao, A. E., & Valdevit, L. (2024, June), Board 423: What Drives You? Exploring the Motivations and Goals of Low-Income Engineering Transfer Students for Pursuing Engineering Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--47013

TY - CPAPER
AB - The diverse group of students served by community colleges holds great potential in contributing to the desired diversification of the engineering workforce (Fay, 2022). However, more effective support for community college students transferring to four-year institutions is needed to ensure their success (Strickland, 2018), as transfer students commonly experience a “transfer shock” when transitioning from community colleges to four-year bachelor-degree awarding institutions. This can affect their academic achievement, retention, and degree attainment negatively (Elliot &amp;amp; Lakin, 2016, Smith et al., 2022, Zhang, 2019). One way to assist transfer students in the transition from community colleges to four-year institutions is the provision of structured support programs, such as NSF’s S-STEM programs. However, to develop the best support system possible, we need to have a clear understanding of what drives students to engage in engineering in the first place, what obstacles they might be perceiving in their path to success, and what unique assets and experiences they bring to engineering. In the current study, we are investigating students’ motivations for pursuing engineering, being part of a scholarship program, the obstacles they are perceiving and the goals they are ultimately looking to achieve. To this end, we analyzed data collected from 122 students in an S-STEM scholarship program for low-income engineering transfer students. As part of the scholarship program application process, students submitted essays discussing their career goals, their motivation for joining the scholarship program and the obstacles they are perceiving for their future success. Using thematic analysis, essays were analyzed for prominent emergent themes. Results revealed a nuanced picture of students’ manifold career goals, the challenges they encounter along their career path as well the needs students hope to address by joining a scholarship program. In addition, they possess unique assets that will support their success. Having a deeper understanding on what drives the students involved in the scholarship, their needs and assets will allow us to improve and create better support programs to help and empower engineering students from diverse backgrounds to persist in their degree programs and future advanced study and engineering careers.
AU - Anna-Lena Dicke
AU - Athena Wong
AU - David A. Copp
AU - Analia E. Rao
AU - Lorenzo Valdevit
CY - Portland, Oregon
DA - 2024/06/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Board 423: What Drives You? Exploring the Motivations and Goals of Low-Income Engineering Transfer Students for Pursuing Engineering
UR - https://peer.asee.org/47013
DO - 10.18260/1-2--47013
ER -