Inclusive Teamwork: Using Participatory Action Research (PAR) to Improve Teamwork Projects in Intro to Mechanical Engineering

Emily Deterding; Nathan Agyeman; Susan Thomson Tripathy; Kavitha Chandra; Carter Keough; Sumudu Lewis

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Conference: ASEE-NE 2022
Location: Wentworth Institute of Technology, Massachusetts
Publication Date: April 22, 2022
Start Date: April 22, 2022
End Date: April 23, 2022
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 12
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--42182
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/42182
Download Count: 267

Paper Authors

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Emily Deterding University of Massachusetts Lowell

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Emily Deterding is currently a Mechanical Engineering student at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. She is currently working with two professors on a research project to improve teamwork in Mechanical Engineering at UMass Lowell. She has been facilitating focus groups for this project and collecting information to be utilized and analyzed for the project. She has previously worked in the Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning field before and hopes to pursue a career in sustainable HVAC/R design.

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Nathan Agyeman

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Nathan is a fourth-year student at the University of Massachusetts Lowell's Francis College of Engineering, where he is pursuing a degree in Computer Engineering (BS). He's highly involved with various organizations on campus. He's currently working in two research groups where he's a lead facilitator in the Exclusive Teamwork project where he collects analyzes information, while being a lead contributor in the Product Life-Cycle Management group where he participates in making connections between computer security and Product Life-Cycle Management. The past summer, Nathan had an opportunity to intern within cybersecurity involving penetration testing and hopes to pursue a career in cyber security consulting.

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Susan Thomson Tripathy University of Massachusetts Lowell orcid.org/0000-0001-5359-6045

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Dr. Susan Thomson Tripathy received a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Harvard University in 1989. Her doctoral research was funded by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation grant, and utilized ethnographic fieldwork in rural Bihar, India, to analyze the politics and artistic development of a local dance form. From 1995-2007, Tripathy taught behavioral sciences at Middlesex Community College (MCC), where she was an active participant and researcher in MCC’s extensive community service-learning program. In 2007, she became the Director of Research at Germaine Lawrence, a residential treatment center for adolescent girls in Arlington MA, focusing on program evaluation and outcomes after discharge. Since 2011, Dr. Tripathy has been teaching in the Sociology department at University of Massachusetts Lowell. She received teaching awards for applied and experiential learning in 2013 and 2014, was promoted to Associate Teaching Professor in 2018, and received the UMass Lowell Teaching Excellence Award in Sociology in 2018. From 2016-2019, Dr. Tripathy was the Director of the Bachelor of Liberal Arts program, an interdisciplinary major with an enrollment of 250 undergraduate students. During 2018-2020, she collaborated with Dr. Kavitha Chandra to utilize participatory action research (PAR) as an evaluation approach for the Research, Academics, and Mentoring Pathways (RAMP) summer program for first-year female engineering students.

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Kavitha Chandra is the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the Francis College of Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. She directs the Research, Academics and Mentoring Pathways (RAMP) to Success program that aims to establish successful pathways to graduate school and interdisciplinary careers for new undergraduate students. Dr. Chandra’s research interests include design of data-driven stochastic models for applications in acoustics, communication networks and predictive analytics in education.

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Abstract

Teamwork projects can be difficult and unsatisfying experiences for first-year engineering students, especially for those with racial, ethnic, and/or gender identities that have been historically underrepresented in engineering programs. Using participatory action research (PAR) and qualitative research methods, this study explores whether engaging students in a series of focus groups and online surveys help disrupt negative teamwork interactions and encourage inclusive student engagement with team projects in an Introduction to Mechanical Engineering class. All participants in this study are engineering students at a college of engineering in New England, and include 6-7 students in the focus groups, two students (one junior, one senior) who served as peer facilitators, and over 35 students who responded to the online surveys. PAR is a research framework that prioritizes the active participation of all community members -- in this case, engineering students and faculty members -- to create an inclusive action process for problem-solving and constructive change. The researchers previously used PAR to successfully improve student satisfaction with an engineering summer bridge program. In this continuation study, focus groups and online surveys were tailored to specifically address inclusive teamwork practices. During the focus groups, students were encouraged to reflectively think on their core values and assets, as well as how they connect with teamwork in engineering. They were also engaged in constructive thought exercises regarding their initiative and what support they need from others, and have the opportunity to make recommendations to faculty regarding possible changes in the teamwork projects. The online surveys provided further opportunity for students to reflect on their teamwork experiences, and allowed the research team to use an intersectional approach for analyzing these experiences with regard to the students’ racial, ethnic, gender, and educational backgrounds. This paper describes the process and challenges associated with recruiting participants, training student facilitators, designing PAR focus group activities, constructing and administering online surveys, reporting back to faculty members, and analyzing participant data. Student recommendations to promote positive teamwork experiences and a summary of variations in teamwork experiences are also discussed.

Citation
Format

Deterding, E., & Agyeman, N., & Tripathy, S. T., & Keough, C., & Lewis, S., & Chandra, K. (2022, April), Inclusive Teamwork: Using Participatory Action Research (PAR) to Improve Teamwork Projects in Intro to Mechanical Engineering Paper presented at ASEE-NE 2022, Wentworth Institute of Technology, Massachusetts. 10.18260/1-2--42182

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Teamwork projects can be difficult and unsatisfying experiences for first-year engineering students, especially for those with racial, ethnic, and/or gender identities that have been historically underrepresented in engineering programs. Using participatory action research (PAR) and qualitative research methods, this study explores whether engaging students in a series of focus groups and online surveys help disrupt negative teamwork interactions and encourage inclusive student engagement with team projects in an Introduction to Mechanical Engineering class. All participants in this study are engineering students at a college of engineering in New England, and include 6-7 students in the focus groups, two students (one junior, one senior) who served as peer facilitators, and over 35 students who responded to the online surveys. 
 PAR is a research framework that prioritizes the active participation of all community members -- in this case, engineering students and faculty members -- to create an inclusive action process for problem-solving and constructive change. The researchers previously used PAR to successfully improve student satisfaction with an engineering summer bridge program. In this continuation study, focus groups and online surveys were tailored to specifically address inclusive teamwork practices. During the focus groups, students were encouraged to reflectively think on their core values and assets, as well as how they connect with teamwork in engineering. They were also engaged in constructive thought exercises regarding their initiative and what support they need from others, and have the opportunity to make recommendations to faculty regarding possible changes in the teamwork projects.  The online surveys provided further opportunity for students to reflect on their teamwork experiences, and allowed the research team to use an intersectional approach for analyzing these experiences with regard to the students’ racial, ethnic, gender, and educational backgrounds. This paper describes the process and challenges associated with recruiting participants, training student facilitators, designing PAR focus group activities, constructing and administering online surveys, reporting back to faculty members, and analyzing participant data. Student recommendations to promote positive teamwork experiences and a summary of variations in teamwork experiences are also discussed. 

AU  - Emily Deterding
AU  - Nathan Agyeman
AU  - Susan Thomson Tripathy
AU  - Carter Keough
AU  - Sumudu Lewis
AU  - Kavitha Chandra
CY  - Wentworth Institute of Technology, Massachusetts
DA  - 2022/04/22
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Inclusive Teamwork: Using Participatory Action Research (PAR) to Improve Teamwork Projects in Intro to Mechanical Engineering
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/42182
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--42182
ER  -