2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Qualitative analysis of the relationships between the teamwork experiences of diverse students and their engineering identities at a Hispanic-serving institution

Presented at Student Teams and Teamwork

This work-in-progress paper describes initial efforts to analyze qualitative interview data from a research study investigating the interplay between engineering students’ engineering identities and their experiences working in teams.
The significant challenges of the 21st century, including the COVID-19 pandemic, global warming, cyber security, and others, demand solutions requiring collaboration between professionals from across the globe. As a result, there have been repeated calls from educators, employers and accreditation bodies to develop teamwork skills in engineering graduates. Concerningly, prior work has also shown that women and underrepresented minorities (URMs) sometimes have different teamwork experiences from their peers. Some examples include reports of feeling less competent in team negotiations, assuming stereotypical tasks in teams, and frequent dismissal of their ideas. At the same time, other research into effective team dynamics has shown that team disagreements can sometimes be constructive
Through the lens of dispersion theory developed by Loignon et al. (2018), we explore how teamwork disagreements inform or are informed by the formation of engineering identity, particularly among women and URM students. Funded by the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Research Initiation in Engineering Formation (RIEF) program, this ongoing effort aims to uncover the relationship among teamwork experiences, team disagreements, and the engineering identities of diverse students.
This paper presents an interview protocol designed to investigate the interplay between these factors. We also describe the inductive analysis process we developed, which employs open and a priori coding. Finally, we summarize the initial results from our first rounds of data collection and analysis. Based at a Hispanic-serving institution (HSI), this study will inform future efforts in inclusive teaching, learning, and mentorship.

Authors

Dr. Stephanie Claussen San Francisco State University [biography]

Stephanie Claussen is an Assistant Professor in the School of Engineering at San Francisco State University. She previously spent eight years as a Teaching Professor in the Engineering, Design, and Society Division and the Electrical Engineering Departments at the Colorado School of Mines. She holds a B.S. in electrical engineering from MIT and a M.S. and Ph.D in electrical engineering with a Ph.D. minor in education from Stanford University.
Fatemeh Khalkhal San Francisco State University [biography]

Dr. Khalkhal is an assistant professor in mechanical engineering at San Francisco State University (a primarily undergraduate and Hispanic-serving Institution). Her research experience is in developing structure-property relationships in complex fluids and polymer composites, broadening the participation of women and underrepresented minorities in engineering, and understanding the relationship between teamwork experience and team disagreements in the formation of engineering identity among diverse students.
Dr. Xiaorong Zhang San Francisco State University [biography]

Xiaorong Zhang received the B.S. degree in computer science from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China, in 2006, the M.S. and the Ph.D. degrees in computer engineering from University of Rhode Island, Kingston, in 2009 and 2013 respectivel
Ana Karen Biviano
Dr. Yiyi Wang San Francisco State University [biography]

Yiyi Wang is an assistant professor of civil engineering at San Francisco State University. In addition to engineering education, her research also focuses on the nexus between mapping, information technology, and transportation and has published in Accident Analysis & Prevention, Journal of Transportation Geography, and Annuals of Regional Science. She served on the Transportation Research Board (TRB) ABJ80 Statistical Analysis committee and the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) panel. She advises the student chapter of the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) at SFSU.

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