2023 Collaborative Network for Computing and Engineering Diversity (CoNECD)

This paper describes the preliminary results of a collaborative autoethnographic exploration of the professional and educational experiences of two non-traditional doctoral students in engineering and computing education. Non-traditional students are defined as part-time learners that are still practicing within their professional fields. Within graduate education research, there are limited studies that focus on the motivation and experiences of part-time learners who are fully employed. The first two authors are currently part-time doctoral students studying engineering and computing education. Outside of their studies, they each work as higher education administrators at the same institution where they are enrolled. In navigating this graduate program, the authors came together over shared experiences and questions about what it means to be a part-time learner in a program and discipline that predominantly enrolls full-time doctoral students. As such, this study seeks to answer the following research questions: (1) how have their goals, as part-time students, evolved as they transitioned into a doctoral program, and (2) what factors impact the agency of individuals pursuing their goals in dual roles, as doctoral students, and higher education administrators?

The researchers seek to understand the first two authors' motivators for pursuing a doctoral degree as part-time learners by analyzing their lived experiences through a collaborative autoethnographic approach. Collaborative autoethnography is an approach to research and writing that identifies and analyzes personal experiences to understand a cultural phenomenon. First, a collaborative analysis of the statement of purposes the first two authors wrote when applying to the program will be used as an initial data source to identify preliminary drivers for pursuing a doctoral degree and their expectations as part-time learners. Additionally, weekly reflections and positionality statements from their first-year engineering and computing education core courses will be included. The later cycles of examining these data sources and conducting a collaborative analysis will help identify emergent similarities and differences. By exploring their first year of the doctoral program, they seek to reveal how the resources available shaped their experience as part-time learners. Each collaborative sense-making session will be recorded to enable the emergence of key findings from these experiences and the impact of being part-time learners on their personal and professional lives. In addition, they will leverage, as appropriate, developmental and agentic theories (e.g., self-authorship, graduate student agency) to help name their experiences, challenges, and growth.

Persistence, retention, and graduation rates are key topics of discussion across several graduate-level studies, but there is little research on part-time students in part because many programs do not offer a part-time pathway. The authors aim to give a voice to part-time learners who are driven to pursue a doctoral degree in engineering and computing education by raising awareness of their lived experiences throughout their program. It is also important to note that some individuals may choose to pursue advanced degrees if these part-time pathways were more available. Therefore, there are implications not only for engineering and computing education graduate programs but for programs in other engineering and computing disciplines. Furthermore, findings can support other “non-traditional” graduate students as they navigate their doctoral pathways.