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<p>  </p> <p>The symbolic reference to being in the “beyond” captures how individuals occupying the hybrid space create identities and cultures that extend beyond the dominant pathways recognized in engineering. The fundamental understanding of the cultural theory suggests that hybridity emerges when two cultural identities overlap that were previously discrete. Scholarship focused on hybridity emerged from studies centered on racial, ethnic, and gender identity and has progressed to examine hybridity in learning environments. I draw on fundamental understandings of hybridity to examine how an interdisciplinary engineering program reflects a hybrid space. </p> <p>This dissertation employed an ethnographic case study approach to investigate the following overarching research question: How is the interdisciplinary engineering program characterized as a hybrid space? The corresponding research questions examine how the interdisciplinary engineering programs shape students’ identities, agency, and belonging and what considerations faculty make concerning students identity development, belonging, and agency in the classroom? This study involved the analysis of three streams of interview data and supporting evidence from site documents retrieved from participants and publicly available sources. </p> <p>This within-case analysis resulted in the emergence of four categories of hybrid spaces—a) structural, b) cultural, c) physical, and d) pedagogical. The structural category represents how the interdisciplinary engineering program reflects a hybrid space through its policies, people, and resources. The cultural category represents how the interdisciplinary engineering program reflects a hybrid culture through its core values. The physical category represents how the interdisciplinary engineering program reflects a hybrid space through students’ access and navigation across multiple curricular and co-curricular spaces. The pedagogical category is concerned with the opportunity structures present in the curricular spaces enabling students to author and negotiate their identity as interdisciplinary engineers. Most importantly, the pedagogical category illustrates how the structural, cultural, and physical categories coalesce. By understanding this interdisciplinary engineering program, these insights can provide transferable lessons to new and emerging programs. </p>

<p>Despite recruitment and retention efforts, women remain underrepresented in the engineering profession. More than two-thirds of women leave engineering within 15 years of graduation, double the rate of men. Women leave or feel psychologically pushed out of the engineering profession because of harassment, discrimination, work-life balance, an initial mismatch between their personal and workplace characteristics, or other reasons. </p> <p><br></p> <p>While previous studies have identified the reasons why women leave engineering careers, a limited number of studies have described how they leave engineering - the processes and pathways that they follow. Furthermore, few empirical studies have examined women's career decisions over their lives. While researchers have investigated how and why women pursue and persist in engineering academic programs, fewer studies have examined women's engineering career decisions after entering the workplace. In this study, I develop a greater understanding of women's engineering career journeys, including their departure from the profession, by addressing: <em>What are the career stories of women who have left engineering after having worked in industry? </em></p> <p><br></p> <p>I explored women's engineering career decisions using narrative inquiry and a novel, boundary-spanning framework encompassing aspects of the Unfolding Model of Turnover and Career Construction Theory. My participants were three women who had practiced engineering in industry for five to seven years before they left the profession. I conducted three ninety-minute interviews with each participant and used a background questionnaire, a workplace artifact, and a life experience timeline to further elicit their narratives. Incorporating a timeline activity increased the quality of participants' narratives. I used a two-part approach to handling and making meaning of my data. First, the participants and I collaborated to construct first-person narratives, which showed the complexity and nuances of women's engineering career pathways. Then, I created interpreted narratives, which described participants' stories of leaving engineering through the shocks (jarring events), scripts (plans of action), and image violations (violations of goals and values) of the Unfolding Model of Turnover. </p> <p><br></p> <p>All participants left engineering according to a newly identified pathway, whereby a shock, in the presence of image violations, caused them to leave the profession to pursue previously identified scripts. The participants experienced similar shocks and enacted similar scripts. For example, all participants enacted a script to stay home with their children, and two participants experienced the same shock, trouble conceiving children. Another key finding is that participants didn't realize they were leaving the profession when they resigned from their last engineering job: two participants sought ongoing part-time engineering work but were unsuccessful. </p> <p><br></p> <p>Knowledge gained in this study expands our understanding of women's engineering career decisions, informs women's engineering career planning, facilitates the program planning of career service providers, and contributes toward broadening the participation of women in engineering. In addition, findings suggest that if employers provide flexible work options and create pathways for returning engineers, then more women will remain in or return to the engineering profession, thereby improving the representation of women in the engineering workplace. </p>

Undergraduate research experiences (UREs) are presented as a mechanism for improving the persistence of Black engineering students. However, because most engineering UREs are led by faculty and staff in Colleges of Engineering, it is reasonable to assume they are not immune to the systemic racial issues that plague engineering education. Existing scholarship on epistemic exclusion theorizes that individual biases and institutional practices contribute to faculty of color's scholarship being devalued and deemed illegitimate, but this topic is underexplored in UREs. LSAMP is an NSF-funded program that provides funding for institutions to create UREs for racially minoritized students in STEM, providing a ripe context for exploring the phenomenon of epistemic exclusion in UREs. This explanatory mixed methods study examines facets of epistemic exclusion prevalent in the undergraduate research experiences of Black engineering LSAMP scholars and the practices undergirding it. The findings of this study are based on survey and interview data collected from current and former LSAMP scholars. The survey results reveal perceptions of low levels of epistemic exclusion via scholarly devaluation; and there were no significant differences in survey responses based on race, gender, or whether in an engineering discipline or not. However, the qualitative phase helped explain the quantitative results. Black engineering students, specifically, experienced epistemic exclusion in ways that differ from literature on underrepresented faculty; and they perceived UREs as an opportunity for learning knowledge – not producing it. While positive peer interactions and a welcoming lab enabled epistemic inclusion, a toxic lab culture and inadequate URE program structures enabled epistemic exclusion. These findings have implications for faculty mentors, URE program administrators, policymakers, and education researchers. They are valuable for advancing our understanding of Black engineering students participating in UREs, contributing to national efforts to broaden participation of racially minoritized students in engineering education, and diversifying the research enterprise and the engineering workforce. / Doctor of Philosophy / Undergraduate research experiences (UREs) are presented as a means of improving Black engineering students' persistence. However, since most engineering UREs are led by faculty and staff in Colleges of Engineering, it is reasonable to assume they are not immune to the systemic racial problems occurring in engineering education. Existing scholarship on epistemic exclusion suggests that individual biases and institutional practices contribute to faculty of color's scholarship being devalued and considered illegitimate, yet this issue is underexplored in UREs. LSAMP is an NSF-funded program that provides funding for institutions to create UREs for racially minoritized students in STEM, offering an opportunity to explore the phenomenon of epistemic exclusion in UREs. This explanatory mixed methods study examines forms of epistemic exclusion prevalent in the undergraduate research experiences of Black engineering LSAMP scholars and the practices undergirding it. The findings of this study are based on survey and interview data collected from current and former LSAMP scholars. The survey results reveal feelings of low levels of epistemic exclusion through scholarly devaluation; and there were no significant differences in survey responses based on race, gender, or whether in an engineering field or not. However, the qualitative phase helped explain the quantitative results. Black engineering students, particularly, experienced epistemic exclusion in ways that differ from literature on underrepresented faculty; and they observed UREs as an opportunity for learning knowledge – not producing it. While positive peer interactions and a welcome lab enabled epistemic inclusion, a toxic lab culture and inadequate URE program structures allowed epistemic exclusion. These findings may be beneficial for faculty mentors, URE program administrators, policymakers, and education researchers. They are valuable for advancing our understanding of Black engineering students taking part in UREs, contributing to national efforts to broaden participation of racially minoritized students in engineering education, and diversifying the research enterprise and the engineering workforce.

Complex socioenvironmental problems such as food, energy and water shortages, health impacts from environmental contamination and global climate change present significant challenges to the global community. Addressing these problems will require an interdisciplinary systems-thinking approach that coordinates problem-solving between practitioners of varied disciplines including engineers, physical scientists, economists and other social scientists. Civil and environmental engineers have distinct technical skills necessary to help address these challenges as part of coordinated multidisciplinary efforts towards the achievement of comprehensive and sustainable resolutions to these problems. Ensuring civil and environmental engineers are trained to think and work in this multidisciplinary exchange requires incorporation of systems-thinking into engineering academic curricula. Attempts have been made to incorporate these skill sets into civil and environmental engineering (CEE) coursework. These efforts, as well as evaluation of their effectiveness in training CEE students to think systemically, have lacked in coordination to integrate them as part of the overarching academic curricula. This research advances the current body of knowledge regarding incorporation of systems-thinking into CEE coursework by examining the impacts of system dynamics model based educational tools on systems-thinking learning outcomes of CEE students in a one-semester CEE elective course. The findings suggest that system dynamics modeling can be an effective tool in educating future systems thinkers in the CEE disciplines. / Doctor of Philosophy / Complex socioenvironmental problems such as food, energy and water shortages, health impacts from environmental contamination and global climate change present significant challenges to the global community. Addressing these problems will require an interdisciplinary systems-thinking approach that coordinates problem-solving between practitioners of varied disciplines including engineers, physical scientists, economists and other social scientists. Civil and environmental engineers have distinct technical skills necessary to help address these challenges as part of coordinated multidisciplinary efforts towards the achievement of comprehensive and sustainable resolutions to these problems. Ensuring civil and environmental engineers are trained to think and work in this multidisciplinary exchange requires incorporation of systems-thinking into engineering academic curricula. Attempts have been made to incorporate these skill sets into civil and environmental engineering (CEE) coursework. These efforts, as well as evaluation of their effectiveness in training CEE students to think systemically, have lacked in coordination to integrate them as part of the overarching academic curricula. This research advances the current body of knowledge regarding incorporation of systems-thinking into CEE coursework by examining the impacts of system dynamics model based educational tools on systems-thinking learning outcomes of CEE students in a one-semester CEE elective course. The findings suggest that system dynamics modeling can be an effective tool in educating future systems thinkers in the CEE disciplines.

To diversify the engineering workplace, we need to broaden participation in engineering. One way to broaden participation is through encouraging integration of engineering activities at home where parents, or more broadly caregivers, facilitate or support engineering activities for their children. This idea is reinforced by previous literature that identifies that (1) elementary-aged children can and should do engineering activities, (2) parents have a longstanding and significant impact on their children in many different ways, (3) parent-child relationships are unique and offer great potential for positive outcomes, and (4) parents can be effective in teaching engineering. While at-home engineering activities are already prevalent, the support resources attached to them are currently lacking for parents. This research is motivated by a desire to understand how parents think about and engage in engineering activities with their children to inform the most effective ways to support parents. This research is scoped to specifically look at the knowledge that 12 parents utilize in engineering activities and identify or perceive as being important in these activities. Given that there are many different types of engineering activities that exist, three different engineering activities that varied by level of structure were included in this study. The well-structured, semi-structured, and ill-structured activities all included a Marble Run toy and a storybook about Mars Rovers that was meant to support an authentic context for the activities. A multiple case study approach was used, where each case represented one of the activities with four parent participants in each case. Data collected for each parent participant included a pre-survey, observed activity engagement, reflection, and pre- and post-interviews. All of this data was coded with a priori codes from the Pedagogical Content Knowledge framework and emergent codes. The findings of this research highlight the role of the following on parent-child engagement in an engineering activity: the rhythm and routine of the parent-child dyad, external influences and independent individual experiences of the parent and the child, parents' ideas about engineering, and the structure of the activity. While the Pedagogical Content Knowledge framework was a useful tool for classification of knowledge, the research findings highlight the role of past experiences and external resources in shaping parents' views on the best way to support their children which is not well documented in this framework. These findings suggest that Frames of Practice may be a better theory to use in thinking about and studying parent-child engagement. Parents utilize existing frames of practice for engaging with their children to dictate the general teaching strategies to utilize. Within specific activities, they also refer to similar neighboring experiences and external resources to refine their frames of practice and modify their strategies used. While parents implement engineering knowledge and strategies, they do not recognize that what they are doing is engineering. There is also variation in the quantity and quality of strategies that are needed for engagement in the different activities, with less structure indicating more skills required of the facilitator and more positive outcomes for the child. For stakeholders invested in parent engagement, this research suggests that we need to (1) validate parents' existing and effective ideas about teaching and engineering by giving parents language that will help them refine their frames of practice through reflection, (2) encourage the use of more advanced pedagogical strategies or engineering strategies, (3) explicitly explain the value of them using the word engineering with their child and the value of continuing to use and talk about the engineering strategies they already implement (brainstorming, planning) with their child, and (4) ensure that parents see the potential engineering connections in the activity. / Doctor of Philosophy / Society needs more qualified engineers and one way to encourage a more diverse workforce is to support greater engagement in engineering at a young age in an effort to support interest development. One way to have more children engaging with engineering is to have parents, or more broadly caregivers, incorporate these activities at home with their children. Previous research has already shown that (1) elementary-aged children can and should do engineering activities, (2) parents have a longstanding and significant impact on their children in many different ways, (3) parent-child relationships are unique and offer great potential for positive outcomes, and (4) parents can be effective in teaching engineering. At-home learning is already prevalent and many engineering activities that parents can implement at home already exist, but the resources and information that come with these activities fall short of providing adequate support for parents. This research is motivated by a desire to understand how parents think about and engage in engineering activities with their children to inform the most effective ways to support parents. This research study describes how 12 parents think about and utilize information when engaging with their children in engineering activities. Many different types of engineering activities exist, and one of the ways in which they can be classified is by their level of structure. A well-structured, semi-structured, and ill-structured activity was included in this research where all activities included a Marble Run toy and a storybook about Mars Rovers that provided a realistic way to think about the activity in real-life terms. Each parent participant completed a pre-survey, observed activity engagement, reflection, and pre- and post-interviews as part of this research. To analyze this data, parent data was analyzed and contextualized prior to building cases formed around the different engineering activities. The findings of this research highlight the role of the following on parent-child engagement in an engineering activity: the rhythm and routine of the parent-child dyad, external influences and independent individual experiences of the parent and the child, parents' ideas about engineering, and the structure of the activity. Parents utilize existing ideas for engaging with their children to dictate the general teaching strategies they use, but they also refer to neighboring experiences and external resources to refine these ideas and modify their strategies used for the specific activity. While parents implement engineering knowledge and strategies, they do not recognize that what they are doing is engineering. There is also variation in the quantity and quality of strategies that are needed for engagement in the different activities, with less structure indicating more skills required of the facilitator and more positive outcomes for the child. For those invested in parent engagement, this research suggests that we need to (1) validate parents' existing and effective ideas about teaching and engineering by giving parents language that will help them refine their ideas about teaching engineering through reflection, (2) encourage the use of more advanced teaching strategies or engineering ideas, (3) explicitly explain the value of using the word engineering with their child and the value of continuing to use and talk about the engineering strategies they already implement (brainstorming, planning) with their child, and (4) ensure that parents see the potential for engineering connections in the activity.

Engineering undergraduate students have opinions and perceptions of engineering disciplines and engineering undergraduate students do not always matriculate and graduate in precisely the same discipline. Understanding how these two characteristics of engineering undergraduate students interact to inform behaviors is important for engineering educators and administrators to increase and improve recruitment and retention among their students. This dissertation approached each characteristic of engineering students, first separately and then together. A nationwide survey of undergraduate engineering students found significant differences in how students perceive various engineering disciplines along several paired-term anchored scales. These differences were equally significant when scores were considered in terms of discipline-membership. Membership was found to lead to higher scores for Difficulty and Friendliness compared to scores of non-members for any given specific discipline. Using historical data, transfer paths of students into, out of, or within engineering were identified by frequency of occurrence as either the origin of a transfer or the destination of a transfer. Industrial Engineering was found to be considerably more frequently experienced as a destination of transfers, regardless of whether the origin degree program was another engineering discipline or from outside of engineering. Conversely, Aerospace Engineering was considerably more frequently experienced as an origin of transfers. Additionally, the transfer path relationship between Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering was investigated. Combining these two characteristics of engineering students—that of having opinions of engineering disciplines and that of having the potential to transfer between degree programs— an ethnographic research methodology was implemented. Factors unrelated to grade performance were identified as common program-change instigators, including personal interest considerations and predicted career opportunities. Ultimately, this dissertation contributes to an understanding of how perceptions of engineering disciplines and degree program transfer behavior affects undergraduate engineering student experiences.

Entering a new environment is challenging for everyone, including engineers. Despite national efforts to improve graduates' competencies, managers and other critical industry stakeholders consistently describe new hires as underprepared for practice. Nonetheless, as engineers move into their new organizations, they learn to participate in and contribute to their communities of practice. This period is the school-to-work transition, and the goal of this research is to gain a deeper understanding of the salient learning events that characterize individuals' trajectories from engineering student to engineering practitioner. Using a multi-case approach, this study leverages weekly journals and semi-structured interviews to explore the experiences of recent engineering graduates as they enter the workplace and learn to engage in professional practice. Journal entries probed newcomers' perceptions of challenges, accomplishments, and significant learning events during the first 12 weeks of their jobs. Interviews expanded on journal findings and elaborated on participants' experiences. Analysis entailed the development and application of two complementary workplace learning frameworks from Jacobs and Park (2009) and Chao et al. (1994) that describe both the setting and content of salient learning experiences. Cross-case analysis enabled exploration across participants to examine trends and patterns within participants' experiential trajectories. Findings point to several contributions and implications. First, the codebooks developed in this study were contextualized and operationalized for engineering workplaces, and have been refined to enhance descriptive precision and clarity. Second, journals provided thick, rich descriptions of events in ways that hold promise for future exploratory studies as well as formative assessment. Finally, results indicated that newcomer engineers engage in a wide range of learning environments throughout the school-to-work transition and describe learning along myriad socialization dimensions. In particular, workplace learning takes place in unstructured environments through routine tasks and along both technical and sociocultural dimensions. Given this learning, both industry and academic professionals should consider these dimensions as they design experiences and assess learning across organizations. Newcomer learning is challenging, but if we can gain a better understanding of how and what happens during it, we can more effectively develop efforts to enhance the transition—and therefore, practice—for future generations of engineers. / Ph. D. / Entering a new environment challenging for everyone, including engineers. Even though we know this to be true, engineers remain underprepared for the demands of modern practice. Still, engineering students do graduate and work in engineering jobs, and there is not necessarily evidence of engineers losing jobs on behalf of their reported lack of preparation. The school-to-work transition is thus a critical period for new engineers, and understanding the experiences that take place within it can help us improve the effectiveness of both engineers themselves and the organizations they enter. Given our relatively limited knowledge of this important juncture, then, the goal of this research is to explore the experiences and interactions of newcomers as they move from engineering student to engineering practitioner. To do so, I followed 12 recent mechanical engineering graduates from graduation into the first 12 weeks of their jobs. I combined weekly reflective journal entries with semi-structured interviews to capture participants’ salient learning events. I developed frameworks which characterize the environment and content of salient learning events and provide an overview of the kind of learning trajectory each participant underwent. I also compiled results across participants to explore differences, similarities, and other patterns in participant experiences. Overall, findings point to several contributions and implications. First, the codebooks developed in this study were refined to more specifically fit within engineering contexts and therefore provide more accurate descriptions of engineering learning. Second, reflective journaling holds promise for tapping into engineering learning that might be difficult to otherwise capture via traditional measurements or instrumentation. Finally, results indicate that newcomer engineers engage in a wide range of learning environments throughout the school-to-work transition and describe learning along myriad social and technical dimensions. Given this learning, both industry and academic professionals should consider these experiences as they design learning environments in the future. Newcomer learning is challenging, but if we can gain a better understanding of how and what happens during it, we can more effectively develop efforts to enhance the transition for future generations of engineers.