Undergraduate Engineering Students’ Experiences of Faculty Recognition

Kelsey Scalaro; Indira Chatterjee; Ann-Marie Vollstedt; Adam Kirn

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Conference: 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Portland, Oregon
Publication Date: June 23, 2024
Start Date: June 23, 2024
End Date: June 26, 2024
Conference Session: Educational Research and Methods Division (ERM) Technical Session 21
Tagged Division: Educational Research and Methods Division (ERM)
Page Count: 17
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--48183
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/48183
Download Count: 124

Paper Authors

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Kelsey Scalaro University of Nevada, Reno

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Kelsey is a recent PhD graduate from the Engineering Education program at the University of Nevada, Reno. She has a BS and MS in mechanical engineering and worked in the aerospace industry for four years before returning to academia to complete her doctoral degree. Her research focusses are in undergraduate engineering identity and is interested in exploring how it can be equitably supported through pedagogical practices.

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Indira Chatterjee University of Nevada, Reno

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Dr. Chatterjee has been with the University of Nevada, Reno since 1988. She is a Professor of Electrical and Biomedical Engineering, and has served as Associate Dean of Engineering since 2010. Currently she oversees undergraduate and graduate education, including recruitment, retention and advising. She has won many awards including Foundation Professor, Tibbitts University Distinguished Teacher Award, the Hoeper Award for Excellence in Teaching and Advising, Society of Women Engineers Region A Service Award, the IEEE Student Section Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Nevada Women's Fund "Women of Achievement" award and the Silver Compass Award for Extraordinary Commitment to Students. She has had over 7 million research funding in Bioelectromagnetics and engineering education. She has served as research mentor to postdoctoral fellows and many graduate students.

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Ann-Marie Vollstedt University of Nevada, Reno

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Ann-Marie Vollstedt is a teaching associate professor for the College of Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR). Dr. Vollstedt completed her dissertation at UNR, which focused on exploring the use of statistical process control methods to assess course changes in order to increase student learning in engineering. Dr. Vollstedt teaches courses in engineering design as well as statics and runs the Engineering Freshmen Intensive Training Program. She is the recipient of the Paul and Judy Bible Teaching Excellence Award, F. Donald Tibbitt's Distinguished Teaching Award, The Nevada Women's Fun Woman of Achievement Award, and the UNR College of Engineering Excellence Award.

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Adam Kirn University of Nevada, Reno orcid.org/0000-0001-6344-5072

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Adam Kirn is an Associate Professor of Engineering Education at the University of Nevada, Reno.

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Abstract

The purpose of this full research paper is to explore how undergraduate engineering students experience the recognition of their engineering identities by engineering faculty.

How undergraduate engineering students believe others see or recognize them as engineering people influences how they take on a disciplinary role identity. Despite the importance of students’ recognition beliefs, less is known about what the recognition of engineering identities looks like in engineering spaces. To design pedagogy and practices that include opportunities for students to be recognized as engineers, we need a nuanced understanding of how these experiences are perceived by students. The role of engineering faculty in recognizing students is particularly noteworthy as they frequently interact with students and often facilitate access to further opportunities within and outside academia. This work specifically examined students’ perceptions of faculty as sources or recognition and their interpretations of this recognition.

This paper focuses on the qualitative results of an ongoing multi-method project at a large, western, land grant university. This phenomenologically guided study explores the experiences of a cohort of 30 high-achieving, socioeconomically disadvantaged students from varying gender, racial, ethnic, and educational backgrounds as they navigate a traditional undergraduate engineering program. This study includes data from 6 rounds of focus groups held at the end of each semester for participants’ first three years in an undergraduate engineering program. In these focus groups questions prompted participants to share and reflect on their motivation, identity, success, and cohort involvement. This paper focuses on data from questions that prompted students to reflect on who saw them as engineers, how they knew, and how they valued this recognition. Directed content and thematic analysis were used to identify codes and develop themes in relation to participants’ recognition beliefs from various groups of people, including faculty. These themes were used to identify what recognition from faculty may look like and how it is interpreted as valuable or meaningful to engineering undergraduate students.

Results indicated that participants qualified faculty as potential sources of meaningful recognition whose treated students as in-progress with varying degrees or respect depending if they were teaching or mentorship faculty. These findings help clarify how undergraduate engineering students qualify sources of recognition and extend identity work by exploring what meaningful recognition can look like in the undergraduate engineering context. By better understanding how students qualify recognition sources and perceive recognition as meaningful, we can design educational environments and high-impact practices that support engineering identity development.

Citation
Format

Scalaro, K., & Chatterjee, I., & Vollstedt, A., & Kirn, A. (2024, June), Undergraduate Engineering Students’ Experiences of Faculty Recognition Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--48183

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - The purpose of this full research paper is to explore how undergraduate engineering students experience the recognition of their engineering identities by engineering faculty. 

How undergraduate engineering students believe others see or recognize them as engineering people influences how they take on a disciplinary role identity. Despite the importance of students’ recognition beliefs, less is known about what the recognition of engineering identities looks like in engineering spaces. To design pedagogy and practices that include opportunities for students to be recognized as engineers, we need a nuanced understanding of how these experiences are perceived by students. The role of engineering faculty in recognizing students is particularly noteworthy as they frequently interact with students and often facilitate access to further opportunities within and outside academia. This work specifically examined students’ perceptions of faculty as sources or recognition and their interpretations of this recognition. 

This paper focuses on the qualitative results of an ongoing multi-method project at a large, western, land grant university. This phenomenologically guided study explores the experiences of a cohort of 30 high-achieving, socioeconomically disadvantaged students from varying gender, racial, ethnic, and educational backgrounds as they navigate a traditional undergraduate engineering program. This study includes data from 6 rounds of focus groups held at the end of each semester for participants’ first three years in an undergraduate engineering program. In these focus groups questions prompted participants to share and reflect on their motivation, identity, success, and cohort involvement. This paper focuses on data from questions that prompted students to reflect on who saw them as engineers, how they knew, and how they valued this recognition. Directed content and thematic analysis were used to identify codes and develop themes in relation to participants’ recognition beliefs from various groups of people, including faculty. These themes were used to identify what recognition from faculty may look like and how it is interpreted as valuable or meaningful to engineering undergraduate students.

Results indicated that participants qualified faculty as potential sources of meaningful recognition whose treated students as in-progress with varying degrees or respect depending if they were teaching or mentorship faculty. These findings help clarify how undergraduate engineering students qualify sources of recognition and extend identity work by exploring what meaningful recognition can look like in the undergraduate engineering context. By better understanding how students qualify recognition sources and perceive recognition as meaningful, we can design educational environments and high-impact practices that support engineering identity development.

AU  - Kelsey Scalaro
AU  - Indira Chatterjee
AU  - Ann-Marie Vollstedt
AU  - Adam Kirn
CY  - Portland, Oregon
DA  - 2024/06/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Undergraduate Engineering Students’ Experiences of Faculty Recognition
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/48183
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--48183
ER  -