2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Board 347: NSF Grantee Poster Session Undergraduate’s Social Capital and Engineering Professional Skills: Comparison between Different Types of Institutions

Presented at NSF Grantees Poster Session

Background
Our research team has received funding to study how engineering students utilize their relationships and social capital both on- and off-campus to develop vital non-technical professional skills. Prior research revealed that the professional skill development occurs both in and outside traditional curriculum activities. Therefore, it is important for researchers to capture the opportunities students have to practice these skills from multiple aspects, i.e., in curricular, co-curricular, and extra-curricular activities. Research also shows that students’ involvement in co- and extra-curricular activities helps them develop professional skills because it allows them to build social relationships with peers, professionals, faculties, industrial partners, etc. As such, the students’ professional development opportunities will vary depending on their engagement in co- and extra-curricular activities and the social support they build during participation. It is important for researchers to study the relationship between social support and professional skill development opportunities to better support students from diverse backgrounds in their journeys of becoming professionals.

Purpose
The purpose of this poster paper is twofold: 1) to give an overview of our research project and plan; 2) to present preliminary results using data collected from 13 different institutions. We will compare survey results on students’ opportunities to practice professional skills and their social support for different types of institutions including Undergraduate/Teaching institutions, Research institutions, HBCUs, and MSI/HSIs.

Methodology/approach
We distributed the Professional Skill Opportunities (PSO) survey and the Undergraduate Student Support (USS) survey to 13 institutions in April 2022 using a probabilistic stratified cluster sampling approach. In total, 1,234 data points were collected. Students who completed our surveys were incentivized with Amazon gift cards. We will compare student responses between different types of institutions using analysis of variance. Mean comparisons will also be conducted among students from different demographic groups.

Future Work & Implications
This poster is part of our effort to understand how students leverage their social relationships (in terms of social capital) to gain opportunities to develop professional skills. We will conduct additional quantitative analysis as well as qualitative interviews to explore the underlying relationship between social capital and professional skill development opportunities and compare how students’ experiences differ across demographic groups. Ultimately, we hope to inform students, educational institutions, and educators of ways to support students, establish and maintain social supports and help them become professionals who are fluent in vital non-technical skills.

Authors

Ms. Tiantian Li http://orcid.org/0009-0001-4870-6008 Purdue University, West Lafayette [biography]

Tiantian Li (Olivia) is a dedicated Ph.D. student in Engineering Education at Purdue University. She received her Bachelor's degree in Biological Engineering, with a concentration in Pharmaceutical Processing Engineering. Currently, she is pursuing her Master's degree in Industrial Engineering. Tiantian has significant research experience in instrument development and validation analysis. Her research interests lie in developing reliable and valid measures for assessing complex engineering competencies, such as systems thinking skills. More particularly, she’s interested in assessing engineering students’ socio-technical systems thinking skills during their design process. In addition to her work on instrument development, Tiantian is also passionate about exploring the experiences of international scholars in the United States
Dr. Eric Holloway http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0343-1709 Purdue University at West Lafayette (COE) [biography]

Prof. Eric Holloway currently serves as a Professor of Engineering Practice in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. He also holds a courtesy faculty appointment in the School of Engineering Education. His research focuses on assessment development and the professional formation of students.
Dr. Kerrie A Douglas http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2693-5272 Purdue University, West Lafayette [biography]

Dr. Douglas is an Associate Professor in the Purdue School of Engineering Education. Her research is focused on improving methods of assessment in engineering learning environments and supporting engineering students.
Dr. Julie P Martin University of Georgia [biography]

Julie P. Martin is the Director of the Engineering Education Transformations Institute at University of Georgia. Julie is a Fellow of ASEE and the editor-in-chief of Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering.
Ms. Victoria Bill New York University [biography]

Victoria Bill is the Founding Director of the Innovation Hub at the Colorado School of Mines. She previously served as the Founding Manager and then Managing Director of the MakerSpace Lab and Experiential Learning Center at NYU Tandon School of Engineering. At NYU, she also taught in the first-year engineering program and the vertically integrated projects program. She studied electrical engineering and received her B.S. from the Ohio State University and her M.S. from the University of Texas at Austin. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Engineering Education from the Ohio State University.
Giselle Guanes Melgarejo The Ohio State University [biography]

Giselle (she/ella) is a postdoctoral scholar in Elevate and editorial assistant for the Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering (JWM). While she was born and raised in Lambaré, Paraguay, she earned her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Kansas State University and her Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Ohio State University. Her raíces (roots) are constantly inspiring her to explore and dive deeper into how engineering design intersects with the Latinx culture, and especially how such intersection can push engineering to be more socially just. As such, she is part of a local nonprofit organization, See Brilliance, which seeks to provide youth with STEM educational opportunities rooted in Black and Latinx cultures.

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