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Piloting a Socio-Culturally Responsive Peer-Mentoring Program to Promote HLX+ Students’ Sense of Belonging in Engineering Education: Lessons Learned from Year 1

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Conference

2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Baltimore , Maryland

Publication Date

June 25, 2023

Start Date

June 25, 2023

End Date

June 28, 2023

Conference Session

Equity, Culture & Social Justice in Education Division (EQUITY) Technical Session 9

Tagged Divisions

Equity and Culture & Social Justice in Education Division (EQUITY)

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

12

DOI

10.18260/1-2--43896

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/43896

Download Count

228

Paper Authors

biography

Cole Hatfield Joslyn Northern Arizona University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0001-8218-2992

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Cole Joslyn is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Northern Arizona University and director of THE Education Lab: To Humanize Engineering Education which emphasizes promoting student growth/development in multiple dimensions, integrating inclusive and emancipatory pedagogy/teaching practices, and reconciling the social and technical nature of engineering. His current research includes exploring a) how integrating holistic, socio-culturally responsive practices and Hispanic/Latine cultural assets and values into educational success strategies influences Hispanic/Latine students’ sense of belonging in engineering and b) how Hispanics/Latines experience values conflicts in engineering and then navigate/reconcile those conflicts, as students or professionals.

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biography

Peter Golding University of Texas, El Paso

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Professor in the Department of Engineering and Leadership at UTEP.

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Abstract

An abundance of literature demonstrates that women’s and minorities’ sense of belonging, or lack thereof, influences their academic performance and persistence in STEM education and careers. To address this problem, we developed a holistic, socio-culturally responsive peer-mentoring program that provided an academic, institutional, and social support system for first-year engineering students. The purpose of this program, Promoviendo el Éxito Estudiantil a través de un Sistema de Apollo (PromESA), is to increase students’ sense of belonging and, by extension, their persistence and graduation rates in engineering, particularly for Latinx students and their intersectionalities. The pilot mentoring program was integrated into a first-year sequence of courses where students would meet with their peer-mentors (i.e., Compañeros/as) during class time. Compañeros/as (Compas for short) provided their mentees with assistance such as tutoring, advising, directing them to available university services and, equally important, emotional support through building friendship, confirmation, and affirmation to improve the students’ sense of belonging. The research seeks to identify academic, institutional, and social support elements that positively influence students’ sense of belonging and explore how integrating Latinx cultural assets and values influence Latinx students’ perceptions of engineering. Findings from the first year of implementation reveal that participants with peer-mentors from their academic major reported a higher sense of belonging than participants with peer-mentors from other academic majors. Also, participants reported receiving social support (i.e., peer and classroom), regardless of academic major. Participant feedback was mixed, with some reporting that peer-mentoring was a key contributor to their sense of belonging while others reported that it contributed somewhat to their sense of belonging and a few reported that it did not contribute to their sense of belonging at all.

Joslyn, C. H., & Golding, P. (2023, June), Piloting a Socio-Culturally Responsive Peer-Mentoring Program to Promote HLX+ Students’ Sense of Belonging in Engineering Education: Lessons Learned from Year 1 Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--43896

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