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WIP: Development of a Survey to Investigate Engineering Faculty Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) Practices in Graduate Research Group Environments

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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

July 12, 2024

Conference Session

Educational Research and Methods Division (ERM) Technical Session 10

Tagged Division

Educational Research and Methods Division (ERM)

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/48297

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Paper Authors

biography

Luis Delgado Jr. Penn State

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Luis R. Delgado Jr. is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Pennsylvania State University. He has a bachelor of science in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Texas at El Paso and earned a master of science degree in Civil Engineering with a minor in Public Policy from Penn State. Along with his role as a Ph.D., he is also a graduate research assistant at the Leonhard Center for Enhancement of Engineering Education at Penn State. His research interests are engineering education, diversity, equity, inclusion, and retention of underrepresented minority groups. Luis will research how diverse human talents contribute to our profession's social and global relevance.

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biography

Catherine G. P. Berdanier Pennsylvania State University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0003-3271-4836

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Catherine G.P. Berdanier is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Pennsylvania State University. She earned her B.S. in Chemistry from The University of South Dakota, her M.S. in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering and her PhD in Engineering Education from Purdue University. Her research expertise lies in characterizing graduate-level attrition, persistence, and career trajectories; engineering writing and communication; and methodological development.

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Abstract

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) challenges in engineering are more evident at the graduate level where racial and ethnic diversity remains particularly low, and PhD completion rates are extremely low for students from marginalized backgrounds. The purpose of this research paper is to understand how engineering faculty members’ beliefs and perceptions about DEIB influence their intention to promote DEIB actions in their graduate research lab groups. Engineering faculty members who are novices to discussions of race and inequity or lack DEIB background knowledge may inadvertently adopt viewpoints, assumptions, or policies in their graduate research lab groups that inadvertently harm or cause distrust among doctoral students, especially those of different racial or ethnic backgrounds. Therefore, faculty are essential stakeholders in creating diverse, equitable, and inclusive lab group environments that are shaped by chosen learning approaches, lab policies (e.g., hiring process and selection criteria), and student mentoring relationships. Using an embedded mixed-methods design, we recruited tenured and tenure-track engineering faculty from R1 institutions across the United States to complete a quantitative survey and participate in an in-depth, semi-structured, qualitative interview. Survey results offered initial inputs associated with faculty’s perceived value for, and likelihood of implementing DEIB practices and activities in their graduate research lab group. Findings from qualitative interviews provided rich contextual information that illuminates how faculty think about DEIB graduate research lab strategies and practices. Overall, this study highlights the explicit role of faculty as systemic gatekeepers in field-wide efforts to make graduate engineering education diverse, inclusive, and equitable. This research paper points to strategies for overcoming different aspects of faculty resistance in order to scale up DEIB in graduate engineering research environments.

Delgado, L., & Berdanier, C. G. P. (2024, June), WIP: Development of a Survey to Investigate Engineering Faculty Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) Practices in Graduate Research Group Environments Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/48297

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