WIP: Professional development experiences from participation in an engineering cooperative education program

Fatemeh Mirzahosseini Zarandi; Madeline Martin; Siqing Wei; David Reeping

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Conference: 2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Publication Date: June 22, 2025
Start Date: June 22, 2025
End Date: August 15, 2025
Conference Session: Cooperative and Experiential Education Division (CEED): Developing Professional and Career Readiness
Tagged Division: Cooperative and Experiential Education Division (CEED)
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 13
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/57436

Dr. Siqing Wei received a B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Engineering Education program at Purdue University as a triple boiler. He is a postdoc fellow at the University of Cincinnati under the supervision of Dr. David Reeping. His research interests span three major research topics, which are teamwork, cultural diversity, and international and Asian/ Asian American student experiences. He utilizes innovative and cutting-edge methods, such as person-centered approaches, NLP, ML, and Social Relation Models. He studies and promotes multicultural teaming experiences to promote an inclusive and welcoming learning space for all to thrive in engineering. Particularly, he aims to help students improve intercultural competency and teamwork competency through interventions, counseling, pedagogy, and mentoring. Siqing received the Outstanding Graduate Student Research Award in 2024 from Purdue College of Engineering, the Bilsland Dissertation fellow in the 2023-24 academic year, and the 2024 FIE New Faculty Fellow Award.

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biography

David Reeping University of Cincinnati orcid.org/0000-0002-0803-7532

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Dr. David Reeping is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering and Computing Education at the University of Cincinnati. He earned his Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Virginia Tech and was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. He received his B.S. in Engineering Education with a Mathematics minor from Ohio Northern University. His main research interests include transfer student information asymmetries, threshold concepts, curricular complexity, and advancing quantitative and fully integrated mixed methods.

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Abstract

This WIP research paper explores engineering students’ experiences of a cooperative education (co-op) program in terms of their professional and career development. Co-ops are designed to engage students to practice knowledge in classrooms in authentic, hands-on work environments based on the partnerships between an academic institution and an organization. Prior work demonstrates the positive association between participation in a co-op program and academic and future employment returns. However, less literature interrogates how engineering students perceive the actual professional development out of such an experience. Therefore, the research question of this work is: How do engineering students participating in a co-op program describe their gained professional development toward their career goals?

This paper leverages an existing large dataset collected by the university’s cooperative education division. We used students' reflective surveys collected during their co-op experience in 2023 from the cooperative education office at a large Midwest public university (n = 5003). The data for this study were collected through a reflective survey administered to students at the conclusion of their co-op experiences. The survey included questions designed to elicit detailed reflections on students' ability to navigate workplace challenges, their communication and problem-solving skills, their perceptions of personal strengths and areas for growth, and the ways in which the co-op experience influenced their professional identity and career goals.

We plan to use thematic analysis to contextualize and identify emerging themes guided by our theoretical framework – Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) – under the three main constructs: self-efficacy beliefs, outcome expectations, and personal goal setting. Our data analysis is expected to provide contextualized insights into how students' co-op experiences contribute to their self-efficacy, influence their career aspirations, and shape their professional and personal development goals. By draft submission, we will have completed our initial analysis of the reflection data and have themes to share related to our research question.

The value of this specific effort lies in the size of the dataset from which we draw our insights. Because the institution the dataset originates from offers mandatory co-op programs, we have a wealth of textual reflection data to explore how co-op influences different elements of the student experience. The implications of this work involve identifying the (in)congruence of students’ perspectives of their gained professional development and career advancement with that expected from academic institutions and industrial partners. Meanwhile, the findings of this work will suggest practical and structural improvement for future co-op programs, especially in terms of assessment through reflective surveys, in fostering essential skills and career readiness among students.

Citation
Format

Mirzahosseini Zarandi, F., & Martin, M., & Wei, S., & Reeping, D. (2025, June), WIP: Professional development experiences from participation in an engineering cooperative education program Paper presented at 2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Montreal, Quebec, Canada . https://peer.asee.org/57436

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - This WIP research paper explores engineering students’ experiences of a cooperative education (co-op) program in terms of their professional and career development. Co-ops are designed to engage students to practice knowledge in classrooms in authentic, hands-on work environments based on the partnerships between an academic institution and an organization. Prior work demonstrates the positive association between participation in a co-op program and academic and future employment returns. However, less literature interrogates how engineering students perceive the actual professional development out of such an experience. Therefore, the research question of this work is: How do engineering students participating in a co-op program describe their gained professional development toward their career goals? 

This paper leverages an existing large dataset collected by the university’s cooperative education division. We used students&#39; reflective surveys collected during their co-op experience in 2023 from the cooperative education office at a large Midwest public university (n = 5003). The data for this study were collected through a reflective survey administered to students at the conclusion of their co-op experiences. The survey included questions designed to elicit detailed reflections on students&#39; ability to navigate workplace challenges, their communication and problem-solving skills, their perceptions of personal strengths and areas for growth, and the ways in which the co-op experience influenced their professional identity and career goals. 

We plan to use thematic analysis to contextualize and identify emerging themes guided by our theoretical framework – Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) – under the three main constructs: self-efficacy beliefs, outcome expectations, and personal goal setting. Our data analysis is expected to provide contextualized insights into how students&#39; co-op experiences contribute to their self-efficacy, influence their career aspirations, and shape their professional and personal development goals. By draft submission, we will have completed our initial analysis of the reflection data and have themes to share related to our research question. 

The value of this specific effort lies in the size of the dataset from which we draw our insights. Because the institution the dataset originates from offers mandatory co-op programs, we have a wealth of textual reflection data to explore how co-op influences different elements of the student experience. The implications of this work involve identifying the (in)congruence of students’ perspectives of their gained professional development and career advancement with that expected from academic institutions and industrial partners. Meanwhile, the findings of this work will suggest practical and structural improvement for future co-op programs, especially in terms of assessment through reflective surveys, in fostering essential skills and career readiness among students. 
AU  - Fatemeh Mirzahosseini Zarandi
AU  - Madeline Martin
AU  - Siqing Wei
AU  - David Reeping
CY  - Montreal, Quebec, Canada 
DA  - 2025/06/22
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - WIP: Professional development experiences from participation in an engineering cooperative education program 
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/57436
ER  -