2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This Work in Progress (WIP) paper describes a qualitative study that explores the different impacts of participating in team-based projects on the formation of engineering students' professional identities and career aspirations. Teaming experiences can be pursued for different outcomes depending on the setting; in this case, we consider the academic and industry contexts. In college classes, the primary purpose is typically knowledge acquisition and demonstrating competencies, whereas the outcome of the team's purpose for coming together is often a lower priority. However, in organizations, the focus of a team is on delivering products, services, and addressing business challenges – the reverse of the academic context. However, when exploring the experiences of engineering students working in teams, cooperative education (co-op) settings can explicitly blend the foci of process and outcomes. Although there has been work linking co-op experiences with shifts in identity and career aspirations, less effort has been expended to explore the relationship between workplace teaming experiences and these shifts.

This Work in Progress (WIP) paper describes a qualitative study that explores the different impacts of participating in team-based projects on the formation of engineering students' professional identities and career aspirations. Teaming experiences can be pursued for different outcomes depending on the setting; in this case, we consider the academic and industry contexts. In college classes, the primary purpose is typically knowledge acquisition and demonstrating competencies, whereas the outcome of the team's purpose for coming together is often a lower priority. However, in organizations, the focus of a team is on delivering products, services, and addressing business challenges – the reverse of the academic context. However, when exploring the experiences of engineering students working in teams, cooperative education (co-op) settings can explicitly blend the foci of process and outcomes. Although there has been work linking co-op experiences with shifts in identity and career aspirations, less effort has been expended to explore the relationship between workplace teaming experiences and these shifts.

We will explore the following research question: "What are the impacts of participating in team-based projects in university courses versus cooperative education (co-op) experiences on the formation of engineering students' professional identities and career aspirations?" We plan to conduct 10-15 semi-structured interviews with engineering students who have completed at least three co-op rotations at a Large Midwest Urban University. It is anticipated these students will have been given enough responsibility in team-based projects that their perspectives and reflections will be relevant to our study. Reflective surveys completed by students during their co-op rotations will collectively inform the design of our interview questionnaire. We will approach our design through the lens of phenomenography. By using a phenomenographic lens, we can explore the firsthand experiences and reflections of the participants, which in turn provides us with insights into the subtle nuances of how university courses and co-op experiences impact their professional identity and career aspirations.

By our draft submission, we plan to have collected our first round of data and have preliminary results ready for feedback. We anticipate the results to primarily concern specific teaming experiences in academic and workplace contexts, which we will code using the cross-case comparison technique to compare themes grounded in each context related to our constructs of interest, identity and career goals. Moreover, through this comparative work, we expect to uncover opportunities to better align team-based activities with teamwork practices in the workplace.

Our research aims to provide valuable insights into the ongoing discussion about the effectiveness of team-based projects in university courses and co-op experiences for engineering students. By focusing on identity formation and career aspirations, we can shed light on the specific mechanisms that impact these crucial aspects of students' educational and professional journeys.