Gatekeepers to Broadening Participation in Engineering: Investigating variation across high schools comparing who could go versus who does go into engineering

Virginia Polytechnic Institute And State University, Blacksburg VA

Investigators

Abstract

Engineering is one of the fastest-growing sectors of the U.S. economy. However, there is a shortage of diverse engineers and scientists in this sector. This research investigation is designed to equip engineering education researchers and other important stakeholders with the knowledge and understanding of how school stakeholders can be better positioned and/or trained to support a more diverse population of students who choose to enroll in postsecondary engineering programs. By focusing on the high school level, the investigators will pinpoint how educational inequalities (as they relate to access to school resources and the role and preparedness of high school counselors and teachers in helping students choose engineering programs) will contribute to academically capable students' decisions to major or not major in engineering, especially among underrepresented student populations. This research project is both timely and potentially impactful in helping the broader engineering community identify the structural barriers that students often experience in different high schools across the state of Virginia and how these barriers may influence underrepresented students' decisions to major or not major in engineering, even when they possess the academic profile to do so. The project also has immense potential to render important findings applicable to key engineering and non-engineering stakeholders in Virginia and beyond. Using a mixed-method research design, data collections were organized into various phases: examining quantitative data from the Virginia Longitudinal Data System (VLDS) to explore high school and college enrollment student records for every Virginia high school student; conducting in-depth qualitative interviews of key school stakeholders (e.g., teachers, school counselors, etc.) at select high schools; collecting student survey data at the same select high schools to determine alignment between what interviewees say are influences versus what students say drive them toward or away from engineering; and collecting survey data from key stakeholders to complement the qualitative interview data. By collecting both quantitative and qualitative data, the research investigation will provide important answers to major broadening participation in engineering questions. Through workshops, policy briefs, K-12 academic conferences, and connections with specific schools selected as case studies, the investigators outlined a strong plan to share findings with K-12 practitioners and policymakers.