2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Although many graduate students in engineering, at some point in their education, serve as teaching assistants or research assistants, many are not prepared through formal engineering education training offered by their universities. This is not only a missed opportunity to provide professional development for graduate students for their future careers, it also contributes to a lack of knowledge about reflective educational practices and innovation in teaching courses. Deficit ideologies are very often unconsciously reproduced (Delpit, 1995; Valencia, 1997), contributing to the hidden perpetuation of ideas that impact the marginalization of underrepresented students in engineering. In order to prepare future faculty for their role in mentoring and educating the next generation of engineers, it remains critical to provide education and guidance to help graduate engineering students better serve as teaching assistants and research assistants. Identifying and addressing deficit ideologies is one way to think critically about preparing engineering students to lead courses and research that can impact students broadly.
The University of Texas at San Antonio, a Hispanic Serving Institution, established a requirement for graduate students to participate in an engineering education course. This case study sought to learn about the various needs of teaching assistants (TAs). Several of the needs included knowledge about resource to support undergraduate students as well as resources that help graduate students in their education. One of the key findings included how deficit ideologies were embedded in the responses of the TAs. In this paper, deficit ideologies of engineering teaching assistants are analyzed closely to learn about the various types of deficit notions, which arose as a result of asking students about their experiences in the course they are leading. They are grouped thematically using themes constructed by Garcia and Guerra (2004). Discussion includes how deficit notions vary and impact students. Deficit ideologies passed down and reproduced at a systemic level may go unnoticed and perpetuated through faculty mentoring as well as in the students’ previous educational experiences.