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Exploring the Influence of Students’ Perceptions of Course Assessment on Retention and Professional Identity Formation

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Conference

2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Minneapolis, MN

Publication Date

August 23, 2022

Start Date

June 26, 2022

End Date

June 29, 2022

Conference Session

Student Division Technical 1: Diversity, Equity, Inclusivity (DEI)

Page Count

9

DOI

10.18260/1-2--40844

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/40844

Download Count

315

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Paper Authors

biography

Cassandra McCall Utah State University

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Cassandra McCall, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Engineering Education Department at Utah State University. Her research focuses on enhancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in engineering by investigating the sociocultural factors and systems that influence how individuals come to know, identify with, and become engineers. She earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Civil Engineering from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology and a Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Virginia Tech.

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Layla Araiinejad Auburn University

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I hold a Bachelor's of Industrial in Systems Engineering from Auburn University and am a future graduate student at MIT!

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Thomas Heaps Utah State University

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Concurrent undergraduate senior in Mechanical Engineering and first year Master student in Engineering Education.

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Wade Goodridge Utah State University

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Brooke Cochran University of Colorado Boulder

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Abstract

Student performance on course assessment is critical in determining who gets to pursue a career in engineering and who does not. However, individuals with minoritized identities in engineering (e.g., women, LGBTQ, disability, minoritized racial and ethnic groups, etc.) continue to experience achievement discrepancies and limited recruitment in engineering programs as compared to their peers from overrepresented identity groups (e.g., White, men, heterosexual, non-disabled, etc.). At the same time, engineering programs continue to experience significant attrition in the second year, which has been attributed to student uncertainties about their major and lack of belonging but has not been extensively explored.

In this pilot study, we explore the following research questions: 1) How do students’ perceptions of assessment structure in second-year Mechanics of Materials courses influence overall course performance? and 2) How do these perceptions influence students’ identities as engineers? To answer these questions, we interviewed and qualitatively analyzed semi-structured interviews with nine undergraduate engineering students who had been enrolled in a Mechanics of Materials course within the past two years across three different universities. Findings from this pilot analysis reveal that the relationship among participant perceptions of performance on course assessments, sense of belonging, and identity formation is complex and nuanced. While participants garnered a sense of belonging in ways not directly associated with course performance, they described course performance as impacting their confidence as future engineers. Future work regarding student perceptions of assessment techniques on identity formation and retention are discussed.

McCall, C., & Araiinejad, L., & Heaps, T., & Goodridge, W., & Cochran, B. (2022, August), Exploring the Influence of Students’ Perceptions of Course Assessment on Retention and Professional Identity Formation Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--40844

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