2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Understanding international graduate engineering students' well-being: What do they need to thrive? (Work in Progress)

Presented at International Division (INTL) Technical Session #3: Student Perspectives

International graduate engineering students (IGES) have unique challenges different from domestic students. At large land-grant institutions, these students may feel left out and experience anxiety or stress that hampers their ability to succeed academically. Understanding the antecedents to the challenges IGESs face can help colleges of engineering better support their international graduate students to ensure they thrive at their institutions. Previous studies have investigated the historical, cultural, and social factors that have impacted the construction of IGES's academic identities. However, broader efforts are needed to understand the population of engineering graduate students at universities with a strong engineering focus. This Work in Progress study presents the results of a pilot survey developed that seeks to understand the factors that impact the well-being of IGESs. For this, we developed a survey that evaluates this population's three main components of their Identity Fundations: (a) socially distributed resources, (b) historically accumulated experiences, and (c) culturally developed identities. The socially distributed resources component assesses social and institutional support, their relationships with advisors, institutional support, and networking capacities. The historically accumulated experiences component focuses on IGES experiences with others, daily life experiences, and their preparation to apply to universities. Finally, culturally developed identities refer to IGES's senses of belonging, recognition, and competence evaluated with the Measure of Engineering Identity (MEI). In addition to the dimensions mentioned earlier, we included the PERMA-profiler (Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment) to assess the factors of flourishing and well-being of the IGESs and determine the impact of the components mentioned above. We plan to apply the refined survey version during the spring semester of 2023. The results will help identify the needs and resources of IGESs and their social determinants. Additionally, it will allow the design of programs, workshops, or events that the engineering faculty of [University] could create to support their IGES.

Authors

Manuel José Alejandro Baquero-Sierra Purdue University at West Lafayette (PPI) [biography]

Alejandro Baquero-Sierra is a 2nd year Ph.D. student in Literacy and Language at Purdue. He got a bachelor's degree in Psychology and a Master's degree in Public Administration.
Mr. Cristián Eduardo Vargas-Ordóñez Purdue University at West Lafayette (COE) [biography]

Cristian Vargas-Ordóñez is a Ph.D. candidate in Engineering Education at Purdue University. His research interests include arts and engineering integration for epistemic justice and multicultural engineering education. He has experience in teaching and designing curricula for various educational programs, including first-year engineering and underrepresented pre-college students. Vargas-Ordóñez also has engineering experience in fields such as environmental control and operations management. He has published several papers on topics such as academic identity construction and transdisciplinary STEAM education.
Dr. Jacqueline E McDermott http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3435-4416 Purdue University at West Lafayette (COE) [biography]

Dr. Jackie McDermott joined the College of Engineering at Purdue University in August 2018 and is the Associate Director of Graduate Diversity and Inclusion. Jackie completed her Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Brandeis University and has over 5 years of recruitment and higher education administration experience. At Purdue, Jackie is passionate about preparing future graduate students and supporting current graduate students, especially those from historically underrepresented backgrounds in Engineering. She also has a specific focus on increasing the diversity of future engineering faculty and developing a more diverse, equitable and inclusive Purdue Engineering.
Stephen Mark McBride Purdue University [biography]

Stephen McBride is the Assistant Director of Graduate Student Success for the College of Engineering. With a strong background in leadership development and career preparation, he received many of the highest honors in the National 4-H and National FFA Organizations. During his year of service as the National FFA Southern Region Vice President, Stephen was trained as a professional facilitator and keynote speaker while representing the National FFA Organization on his visits to more than 30 states and Japan. He is passionate about student development and connecting students with the resources and training they need to achieve their career and professional goals.

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