Development of the Fit of Personal Interests and Perceptions of Engineering Survey (F-PIPES) Instrument (Fundamental)

Morgan M. Hynes; Kayla R. Maxey; Rong Su

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Conference: 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access
Location: Virtual Conference
Publication Date: July 26, 2021
Start Date: July 26, 2021
End Date: July 19, 2022
Conference Session: Pre-College Engineering Education Division Technical Session 7
Tagged Division: Pre-College Engineering Education
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 19
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--36975
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/36975
Download Count: 350

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Paper Authors

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Morgan M. Hynes Purdue University at West Lafayette (COE)

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Dr. Morgan Hynes is an Associate Professor in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University and Director of the FACE Lab research group at Purdue. In his research, Hynes explores the use of engineering to integrate academic subjects in K-12 classrooms. Specific research interests include design metacognition among learners of all ages; the knowledge base for teaching K-12 STEM through engineering; the relationships among the attitudes, beliefs, motivation, cognitive skills, and engineering skills of K-16 engineering learners; and teaching engineering.

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Kayla R. Maxey Purdue University at West Lafayette (COE) orcid.org/0000-0002-2341-3866

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Kayla is a doctoral candidate in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. Her research focuses on creating and sustaining cultures of inclusion in engineering. She investigates normative cultural ideologies produced and reinforced by engineering education structures (e.g. departments, courses, policies) to determine the influence on initiatives to recruit, retain, and support diverse students. Her current work explores the cultural productions of faculty to understand how to improve inclusion in engineering departments and institutions. Her work with FACE lab centered the influence of informal engineering learning experiences on diverse students’ attitudes, beliefs, perceptions of engineering In addition, this work investigates the relationship between students’ interests and the engagement with engineering to inform curriculum development and teaching strategies for K-12 STEM educators.

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Rong Su University of Iowa orcid.org/0000-0003-4520-9134

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Dr. Rong Su is an Assistant Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at the Henry B. Tippie College of Business, University of Iowa. She received her Ph.D. degree in Organizational Psychology with a minor in Quantitative Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and previously served on the faculty in the Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University. Her research centers on the role of individual differences, particularly those in vocational interests and personality, in predicting work outcomes and has demonstrated how organizations can improve recruiting, selection, and retention outcomes by optimizing person-environment (P-E) fit. She also uses the theoretical lens of P-E fit to explain gender and racial career inequality and helps inform organizational strategies and public policy for diversity and inclusion. Dr. Su’s methodological expertise is on quantitative research methods and multivariate statistical analyses in applied psychological and management research, including meta-analysis, psychometric measurement, structural equation modeling, and methods for modeling P-E fit.

Dr. Su’s research has been published in high-impact psychological and management journals such as Psychological Bulletin, Perspectives on Psychological Sciences, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Journal of Management. Her work has been cited over 3,000 times according to Google Scholar as of October 2020 and has been featured in major media outlets including Time and The New York Times. She currently serves as an Associate Editor for Psychological Bulletin. Outside of her academic appointment, Dr. Su is actively involved in the dissemination and application of research to make a broader impact. She has served as a research consultant on the ongoing development of the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) for the U.S. Department of Labor, on the assessment of adult non-cognitive skills, interests, and well-being for the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and on assessments of workforce readiness for Educational Testing Service (ETS). She has concluded eight grant-funded research projects to date in the role of PI or Co-PI totaling $1.2 million.

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Abstract

The call to introduce young students, especially those underrepresented in engineering, to engineering has been answered with numerous pre-college engineering education intervention programs aimed at improving students’ attitudes toward engineering. Many of the engineering interventions show improved student attitudes and interest in engineering; however, we posit that these interventions may not be measuring the appropriate kind of interests. The development of the Fit of Personal Interests and Perceptions of Engineering Survey (F-PIPES) instrument aims to provide a measure of the alignment between students’ personal interests and their perceptions of engineering. Applying Holland’s Career Theory of Vocational Personalities and Work Environments, we developed and validated a survey instrument to measure students’ perceptions of engineering and then determined fit to their personal interests using an adaptation from an existing personal interest profiler. The survey was tested during a summer engineering workshop with 260 9-14 year-old students. The final F-PIPES instrument resulted in a 24-item engineering perceptions survey coupled with the 30-item personal interest assessment. This tool measures the fit between students’ personal interests and their perceptions of engineering. The results from the F-PIPES instrument as applied to the 10-session engineering workshop showed different levels of fit between interests and perceptions along gender and race/ethnicity demographics. The F-PIPES instrument provided insights about how an engineering intervention may appeal to the interests of diverse students. Going forward more testing with different student populations, different engineering interventions, and other varying contextual factors needs to be done to further validate the utility of this tool.

Applying Holland’s Career Theory of Vocational Personalities and Work Environments, we developed and validated a survey instrument to measure students’ perceptions of engineering and then determined fit to their personal interests using an existing personal interests profiler. The survey was tested during a summer engineering workshop with 260 9-14 year-old students.

The final F-PIPES instrument resulted in a 24-item engineering perceptions survey coupled with the 30-item personal interest profiler results. This tool measures the fit between students’ personal interests and their perceptions of engineering. The results from the F-PIPES instrument as applied to the 10-session engineering workshop show different fits between interests and perceptions along gender and race/ethnicity demographics. The F-PIPES instrument provided insights about how an engineering intervention may appeal to the interests of diverse students. Going forward more testing with different student populations, different engineering interventions, and other varying contextual factors needs to be done to further validate the utility of this tool.

Citation
Format

Hynes, M. M., & Maxey, K. R., & Su, R. (2021, July), Development of the Fit of Personal Interests and Perceptions of Engineering Survey (F-PIPES) Instrument (Fundamental) Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--36975

TY - CPAPER
AB - The call to introduce young students, especially those underrepresented in engineering, to engineering has been answered with numerous pre-college engineering education intervention programs aimed at improving students’ attitudes toward engineering. Many of the engineering interventions show improved student attitudes and interest in engineering; however, we posit that these interventions may not be measuring the appropriate kind of interests. The development of the Fit of Personal Interests and Perceptions of Engineering Survey (F-PIPES) instrument aims to provide a measure of the alignment between students’ personal interests and their perceptions of engineering. Applying Holland’s Career Theory of Vocational Personalities and Work Environments, we developed and validated a survey instrument to measure students’ perceptions of engineering and then determined fit to their personal interests using an adaptation from an existing personal interest profiler. The survey was tested during a summer engineering workshop with 260 9-14 year-old students. The final F-PIPES instrument resulted in a 24-item engineering perceptions survey coupled with the 30-item personal interest assessment. This tool measures the fit between students’ personal interests and their perceptions of engineering. The results from the F-PIPES instrument as applied to the 10-session engineering workshop showed different levels of fit between interests and perceptions along gender and race/ethnicity demographics. The F-PIPES instrument provided insights about how an engineering intervention may appeal to the interests of diverse students. Going forward more testing with different student populations, different engineering interventions, and other varying contextual factors needs to be done to further validate the utility of this tool.

Applying Holland’s Career Theory of Vocational Personalities and Work Environments, we developed and validated a survey instrument to measure students’ perceptions of engineering and then determined fit to their personal interests using an existing personal interests profiler. The survey was tested during a summer engineering workshop with 260 9-14 year-old students.

The final F-PIPES instrument resulted in a 24-item engineering perceptions survey coupled with the 30-item personal interest profiler results. This tool measures the fit between students’ personal interests and their perceptions of engineering. The results from the F-PIPES instrument as applied to the 10-session engineering workshop show different fits between interests and perceptions along gender and race/ethnicity demographics. The F-PIPES instrument provided insights about how an engineering intervention may appeal to the interests of diverse students. Going forward more testing with different student populations, different engineering interventions, and other varying contextual factors needs to be done to further validate the utility of this tool.

AU - Morgan M. Hynes
AU - Kayla R. Maxey
AU - Rong Su
CY - Virtual Conference
DA - 2021/07/26
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Development of the Fit of Personal Interests and Perceptions of Engineering Survey (F-PIPES) Instrument (Fundamental)
UR - https://peer.asee.org/36975
DO - 10.18260/1-2--36975
ER -