Collaborative Research: Improving Performance and Retention of Engineering Graduate Students through Motivation and Identity Formation

North Carolina State University, Raleigh NC

Investigators

Abstract

This work is supported by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program. The ECR program emphasizes fundamental STEM education research that generates foundational knowledge in the field. Investments are made in critical areas that are essential, broad and enduring: STEM learning and STEM learning environments, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. The program supports the accumulation of robust evidence to inform efforts to understand, build theory to explain, and suggest intervention and innovations to address persistent challenges in STEM interest, education, learning and participation. This ECR project intends to understand how doctoral engineering student experiences influence identity formation and motivation and therefore affect retention, persistence and productivity. While this has been widely studied at the undergraduate level, graduate-level studies are less available. Engineering is the least studied fields in graduate education, and if studied, is often combined with other STEM fields, despite unique disciplinary cultures. Engineering culture traditionally values industry-driven careers over academically-driven careers. The focus on career preparation and industry-relevant experiences can also lead to limited development of research-oriented skills and future goals by engineering students. Students coming in with limited definitions of research, particularly research in an engineering context, can experience a mismatch between their identities, their future goals and expectations for them as researchers. The proposed work could benefit engineering graduate students who may be at risk of abandoning their educational pursuits in engineering. Increasing retention of talented individuals in graduate engineering programs increases the number of individuals who can train the new graduates needed to solve the next generation of engineering problems. Unique approaches to problems solved by engineers are essential as growing global competition and increased emphasis on new technology drive the need for creative engineers. A goal of the study is to shape graduate education best practices for recruitment, retention, and training in engineering, particularly for doctoral students in engineering, but elements of this work will be transferable to other populations within graduate education. Through a mixed methods study of graduate student motivational goal setting and identity formation the following research questions will be answered: 1. What are the identity and motivation profiles of engineering doctoral students, which are based on previous academic and research experiences in STEM? 2. How does the STEM community influence identity formation and motivational goal setting processes of engineering doctoral students? 3. How do these processes related to identity formation and motivation influence engineering graduate student retention, productivity, and pursuit of doctoral level engineering careers? In the initial quantitative phase, development, administration, and analysis of a survey to assess the experiences of a nationally-representative sample of currently-enrolled engineering graduate students will be completed. Data will be analyzed using advanced clustering techniques to create attitudinal profiles that reflect graduate students' identity and motivation. To maximize the sample size, students will be recruited through engineering societies and targeted solicitations to graduate engineering programs. In the qualitative second phase up to 50 students of varying attitudinal profiles will be selected to study the influence of graduate experiences on identity development and motivational goal setting. Using a phenomenological lens, students will be interviewed about their experiences in graduate engineering education. Through the mixed-methods approach, the interactions of students' identities and motivation will be captured and how academic experiences influence these profiles will be determined. Results can be used to inform programmatic decisions in graduate programs and facilitate interventions that promote motivation and identity development.