2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
A Qualitative Study of Support and Transition Experiences for Underrepresented Minority Students in the Rising Doctoral Institute
Presented at Fostering Diversity and Inclusion in STEM Education
Reports on graduate education in the US have shown that underrepresented minority (URM) students (i.e., African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans) are more likely to depart from the engineering Ph.D. than their majority counterparts. We developed the Rising Doctoral Institute (RDI) to address this issue. The RDI is an NSF-funded research-based intervention to support URM students' transition into engineering Ph.D. programs. One goal of the RDI is to support multiple institutions in adapting the RDI design to meet their institutions' needs and student populations. Five institutions across the US are implementing the RDI, intending to create a more diverse and inclusive community of engineering scholars. To assess how these institutions achieve these goals, the RDI team conducts multiple assessments. This paper explores emergent themes resulting from interviews with RDI participants.
As part of one of our efforts to address our research question— What impact did the RDI have on its participants across their first year of the engineering doctoral degree? — we conducted semi-structured, longitudinal, individual interviews with RDI participants for the academic year 2022-2023. We interviewed seven individuals hailing from the five RDI partner research-intensive universities.
We employ the Garcia et al. (2020) reconceptualized socialization model to contextualize our analysis of URM students' experiences in engineering doctoral programs. These model concepts will help frame student experiences in these institutions and build better-targeted support systems for diverse populations. For this study, this framework allowed us to elicit through interviews and explore through thematic analysis how RDI-supported students reflected on various aspects of their individual development and their perceptions about the value of the RDI workshop.
The students' responses were grouped into six thematic patterns: (1) well-being, (2) Ph.D. functioning, structure, process, (3) critical perspectives about the value of the workshop, (4) community and belonging, (5) identity awareness, and (6) quality of the workshop. These patterns showed that students found the RDI workshop helpful in understanding the significance of balancing their well-being and Ph.D. demands. Equally important for students was the opportunity the RDI gave them to comprehend the doctoral program's structure regarding operations, organization, and the processes involved until completion. Students also reflected on the importance of community building and contributing to increasing their awareness of identity issues related to gender, race, and ethnicity. Finally, students provided their critical perspectives on the content and format of the workshop, suggesting ways it could have a greater impact on their lives.
Based on our initial findings, we recommend future research should focus on advancing our understanding of how RDI affects three key areas: balancing the demands of pursuing a Ph.D. while maintaining wellness, facilitating a deeper understanding of the program's structure and processes, and building a sense of community and exploring identity for minoritized students in higher education in the US.
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Abimelec Mercado Rivera
http://orcid.org/https:// 0000-0002-8899-7671
Arizona State University
[biography]
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Dr. Stephanie G. Adams The University of Texas at Dallas [biography]
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Dr. Holly M Matusovich Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [biography]
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