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Social Capital During COVID-19: Research Case Studies from U.S. and U.K. Contexts

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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

Educational Research and Methods (ERM) Division Poster Session

Page Count

14

DOI

10.18260/1-2--41038

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/41038

Download Count

365

Paper Authors

biography

Jameka Wiggins The Ohio State University

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Originally from Prince George’s County, Jameka Wiggins is a Ph.D. student in Engineering Education at The Ohio State University. She started her Ph.D. in the Fall 2021 after earning her bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering and minor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). Jameka has always had a passion for service and an interest in helping to support marginalized populations in STEM, specifically engineering. In addition to being a doctoral, she loves to spend time with her bichon poodle mix Cairo, family, and friends!

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biography

Amanda Johnston California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

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Amanda Johnston is a lecturer at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

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Kerrie Douglas Purdue University at West Lafayette (COE)

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Dr. Kerrie Douglas, Assistant Professor of Engineering Education at Purdue, studies how to improve the quality of classroom assessments and evaluation of online learning in a variety of engineering education contexts. She holds a PhD in Educational Psychology and a M.A. in Educational Studies, with focus on school counseling. She is a co-PI on the SCALE project, leading the evaluation and assessment efforts. She recently received an NSF award to study engineering instructor decisions and student support during COVID-19 and impact the pandemic is having on engineering students. She also recently won the prestigious CAREER award from the U.S. National Science Foundation to study increasing the fairness of engineering assessments. In total, she has been on the leadership of more than $24 million dollars in research awards. Her research on evaluation of online learning (supported by two NSF awards #1544259,1935683, ) has resulted in more than 20 peer-reviewed conference and journal publications related to engineering learners in online courses. She was a FutureLearn Research Fellow from 2017-2019; a 2018 recipient of the FIE New Faculty Fellow Award and was the 2021 Program Chair for the Educational Research Methods Division of ASEE.

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Julie Martin The Ohio State University

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Julie P. Martin is a Fellow of ASEE and an associate professor of Engineering Education at The Ohio State University. Julie’s professional mission is to create environments that elevate and expand the research community. She is the editor-in-chief of Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, where her vision is to create a culture of constructive peer review in academic publishing. Julie is a former NSF program director for engineering education and frequently works with faculty to help them write proposals and navigate the proposal preparation and grant management processes. She was a 2009 NSF CAREER awardee for her work operationalizing social capital for engineering education. More recently, Julie has encouraged the engineering education research community to embrace methodological activism, a paradigm whereby researchers intentionally choose methods for the political purpose of empowering marginalized populations. Learn more about her research team, Elevate, at juliepmartin.com.

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Ines Direito

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Abstract

During the Spring 2020 semester, universities shifted into emergency remote teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Globally, the pandemic disrupted students learning, their support structures, and interactions with other individuals both socially and academically. In addition, it created lasting impacts on professionals in determining strategies and altering objectives to help undergraduate engineering students achieve their learning objectives. Previous research on social support during the pandemic has focused primarily on singular cultural context, this study was conducted to understand the impact of the pandemic on students support in different cultural contexts. The purpose of this research was to explore how students experienced social capital structures at two institutions: one in the United Kingdom (U.K.) and one in the United States (U.S.) during the period of emergency remote teaching. The survey was designed around social capital theory, it provided demographic information, students agreement with their educational and social interactions, and names of individuals as well as resources they utilized during the pandemic.

Results revealed similarities and differences between the two groups. Both case studies had the same top three alters: friends/roommate, professor, and family members, and reported almost the same frequency in communication with their alters. Participants in both case studies also had high rates of support in both expressive and instrumental categories from their top two alters. Examining the differences, the UK case had a lower mean response for both sense of belonging and satisfaction at the university. Finally, there was a difference in the types of alters identified in each case due to different cultural contexts.

Wiggins, J., & Johnston, A., & Douglas, K., & Martin, J., & Direito, I. (2022, August), Social Capital During COVID-19: Research Case Studies from U.S. and U.K. Contexts Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41038

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