Asee peer logo

Work in Progress: Formation of an Engineering Identity in First-year Students through an Intervention Centered on Senior Design Projects

Download Paper |

Conference

2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

Location

Virtual On line

Publication Date

June 22, 2020

Start Date

June 22, 2020

End Date

June 26, 2021

Conference Session

First-Year Programs: Metacognition, Self-Efficacy, and Motivation #1

Tagged Division

First-Year Programs

Page Count

11

DOI

10.18260/1-2--35638

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/35638

Download Count

431

Paper Authors

biography

Abigail M. Richards Montana State University

visit author page

Dr. Richards has been faculty at Montana State University since 2007. She is particularly interested in retention of underrepresented groups in engineering and first-year programs.

visit author page

biography

Ryan Anderson Montana State University

visit author page

Dr. Anderson received a BS in Chemical Engineering and a BA in History from Bucknell University in 2007. He obtained a PhD in Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of British Columbia in 2012 before postdoctoral studies at City College of New York. He is currently an associate professor at Montana State University.

visit author page

biography

Carrie B. Myers Montana State University

visit author page

Dr. Carrie B. Myers is a professor in Adult and Higher Education graduate program at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana. Her research areas include (1) socialization experiences of undergraduate and graduate students in STEM, with a special interest in underrepresented groups; (2) institutional factors and faculty practices that enhance students' learning and socialization experiences; and (3) the P20 context and how it increases students' higher education outcomes.

visit author page

Download Paper |

Abstract

This work in progress paper describes the initial results of a multiyear project to study the development of an engineering identity by students in a chemical engineering program. The project focuses on how engineering identity may be impacted by a series of interventions integrating subject material from a senior-level capstone design course into the coursework of a first-year introductory engineering course and, in a later phase of the project, incorporating interventions in a second-year course. The interventions position the senior capstone design students as peer-mentors to the first-year students. Through series of timed interventions scheduled to take place in the first-year course and as the work progresses, the second-year course, we hope to ascertain the following: (1) the extent to which, relative to a control group, exposure to a peer mentor increases a students’ engineering identity development over time compared to those who do not receive peer mentoring and (2) if the quantity and/or timing of the peer interactions impact engineering identity development. It may ultimately be possible to correlate the early development of a stronger engineering identity with student retention and persistence in the major.

Early in the fall semester, freshman chemical engineering students enrolled in an introductory chemical engineering course and senior students in a capstone design course were administered a survey that contained a validated instrument, developed by Allison Godwin, to assess engineering identity. The first-year course has 107 students and the senior-level course has 92 students. Mid-semester, immediately after the first-year students were introduced to the concepts of process flow diagrams and material balances, senior design student teams gave presentations about their capstone design projects in the first-year course. The presentations focused on the project goals, design process and highlighted the process flow diagrams. After the presentations, freshman and senior students attended small group dinners as part of a homework assignment wherein the senior students were directed to communicate information about their design projects as well as share their experiences in the chemical engineering program. Dinners occurred over several days, with up to ten freshmen and five seniors attending each event. Freshman students were encouraged to use this time to discover more about the major, inquire about future course work, and learn about ways to enrich their educational experience through extracurricular and co-curricular activities. Several weeks after the dinner experience, senior students returned to give additional presentations to the freshman students to focus on the environmental and societal impacts of their design projects. The engineering identity instrument measures students’ subject-related role identity and focuses on students’ interest, competence, and recognition within engineering. The intervention targets these outcomes in three important ways. First, the senior students share their design projects with the freshman and discuss the application of concepts in design. These discussions are intended to increase students’ interest and understanding of engineering and the curriculum. Second, the freshman and senior students meet for dinner so that they can informally talk about what it is like to be an engineering major. This near-peer mentoring is designed to foster freshman students’ understanding of what it means to be an engineering major and what they can expect from their curriculum and career opportunities.

This longitudinal intervention study has three unique features. First, baseline measures were taken for the engineering identity of first-year, second-year, and senior students prior to the intervention. Second, there will be two comparative groups that do not receive the intervention. Third, the students’ exposure to the intervention will vary based on the sequence of courses. This will allow us to measure a “dose” response. Follow-up surveys will be administered to students at the conclusion of the first-year, second-year and senior courses to track the development of an engineering identity and determine if engineering identity was impacted by the interventions.

Richards, A. M., & Anderson, R., & Myers, C. B. (2020, June), Work in Progress: Formation of an Engineering Identity in First-year Students through an Intervention Centered on Senior Design Projects Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--35638

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2020 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015