Children’s Perceptions of Manufacturing Careers: Examining the Influence of Industry-Public Education Initiatives

Greg J. Strimel; Liesl Klein; Sydney Taylor Serban

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Conference: 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access
Location: Virtual On line
Publication Date: June 22, 2020
Start Date: June 22, 2020
End Date: June 26, 2021
Conference Session: Pre-college Engineering Education Division Technical Session 10
Tagged Division: Pre-College Engineering Education
Page Count: 32
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--34281
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/34281
Download Count: 297

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Paper Authors

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Greg J. Strimel Purdue University, West Lafayette orcid.org/0000-0002-4847-4526

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Greg J. Strimel, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of Technology Leadership and Innovation and the coordinator of the Design and Innovation Minor at Purdue University. Dr. Strimel conducts research on design pedagogy, cognition, and assessments as well as the preparation of K-12 engineering teachers.

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Liesl Klein Purdue University, West Lafayette

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Liesl Krause is a current Ph.D. student at Purdue University in the Polytechnic Institute. She is currently funded through the Purdue Doctoral Fellowship. She has research interests in student career perceptions and student mentorship in graduate school. Liesl graduated from Villanova University in 2016 with her Bachelor's in Electrical Engineering and graduated from Purdue University's Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering in 2018 with her Master's.

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Sydney Taylor Serban Purdue University, West Lafayette

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Sydney Serban is an undergraduate student at Purdue University, where she majors in Mechanical Engineering Technology and double minors in Dance and Design & Innovation. In addition to her studies, Sydney has been an undergraduate researcher through Purdue Polytechnic Institute for the past two years.

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Abstract

Manufacturing has been an important factor in the United States economy since the start of the industrial revolution and it continues to influence the nation’s economic success. The United States produces 18.2% of all the world’s goods, which is the most production by any one country, trailed by China who produces 17.6% of the world’s goods (Amadeo, 2019). However, by 2028, it is estimated that manufacturing in the United States will face a shortage of over two million workers (Deloitte, 2017). A 2018 Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute study revealed that the search for skilled talent was ranked as the number one concern for manufacturing competitiveness by global manufacturing executives. This study also found that these executives believed that more than half of the open jobs could remain unfilled because of a “shifting” skill set due to the introduction of new advanced technology along with the negative perception students/their parents have toward the manufacturing industry. As studies have shown, society seems to hold a negative perception of manufacturing careers (Authors, 2018; 2019; Deloitte, 2017), which likely prevents many potential workers from exploring the field. Accordingly, recommendations have been made to remedy this issue by investing in long-term industry and public education partnerships. While manufacturers have now launched numerous outreach initiatives in collaboration with public education institutions to spread career awareness to students at the K-12 level, limited research on how such initiatives influence children manufacturing career perceptions exists. Therefore, this study investigated the potential influence of a weeklong manufacturing outreach event on children’s career perceptions. 672 students from grades K through 12 were surveyed before and after the industry-driven outreach event focused on manufacturing. The survey results were analyzed to determine any significant changes in regard to the participants’ career perceptions and open-response questions were coded to provide a qualitative description of their experience during the event. The results of this analysis are presented and used as a foundation for discussions and recommendations for developing industry-led outreach initiatives and preparing children for the future of work.

Citation
Format

Strimel, G. J., & Klein, L., & Serban, S. T. (2020, June), Children’s Perceptions of Manufacturing Careers: Examining the Influence of Industry-Public Education Initiatives Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--34281

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Manufacturing has been an important factor in the United States economy since the start of the industrial revolution and it continues to influence the nation’s economic success. The United States produces 18.2% of all the world’s goods, which is the most production by any one country, trailed by China who produces 17.6% of the world’s goods (Amadeo, 2019). However, by  2028, it is estimated that manufacturing in the United States will face a shortage of over two million workers (Deloitte, 2017). A 2018 Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute study revealed that the search for skilled talent was ranked as the number one concern for manufacturing competitiveness by global manufacturing executives. This study also found that these executives believed that more than half of the open jobs could remain unfilled because of a “shifting” skill set due to the introduction of new advanced technology along with the negative perception students/their parents have toward the manufacturing industry. As studies have shown, society seems to hold a negative perception of manufacturing careers (Authors, 2018; 2019; Deloitte, 2017), which likely prevents many potential workers from exploring the field. Accordingly, recommendations have been made to remedy this issue by investing in long-term industry and public education partnerships. While manufacturers have now launched numerous outreach initiatives in collaboration with public education institutions to spread career awareness to students at the K-12 level, limited research on how such initiatives influence children manufacturing career perceptions exists. Therefore, this study investigated the potential influence of a weeklong manufacturing outreach event on children’s career perceptions. 672 students from grades K through 12 were surveyed before and after the industry-driven outreach event focused on manufacturing. The survey results were analyzed to determine any significant changes in regard to the participants’ career perceptions and open-response questions were coded to provide a qualitative description of their experience during the event. The results of this analysis are presented and used as a foundation for discussions and recommendations for developing industry-led outreach initiatives and preparing children for the future of work.
AU  - Greg J. Strimel
AU  - Liesl Klein
AU  - Sydney Taylor Serban
CY  - Virtual On line 
DA  - 2020/06/22
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Children’s Perceptions of Manufacturing Careers: Examining the Influence of Industry-Public Education Initiatives
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/34281
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--34281
ER  -