This project is motivated by the need to increase and diversify the engineering workforce, which will help to increase economic growth and prosperity in the United States. The ultimate goal of this project is to understand more effectively the ways in which students can become interested in pursuing engineering majors in college and how to help them persist through to the end of an engineering degree, with particular attention on those students who may have different views of the role of engineering. This will be accomplished by a large quantitative assessment followed by a longitudinal study of students who are identified as holding various normative or non-normative attitudinal profiles, with a focus on understanding students' feelings of belonging in engineering and their developing engineering identities. The outcomes of this work will result in practical ways to increase diversity in engineering programs through research-based recruitment and teaching strategies focused on student identities within engineering. Specific course materials will be developed to target graduate students entering academia (who will be teaching future engineering students) to help begin to foster a more welcoming culture in engineering.
- Focus: Graduate students
- Funder: National Science Foundation
- Team: Geoffrey Potvin (Principal Investigator), Allison Godwin (Co-Principal Investigator)
- Award Number: 1428689
- Amount: $170,527.00
- Contact: Geoff Potvin (gpotvin@fiu.edu), Department of Physics