2025 Collaborative Network for Engineering & Computing Diversity (CoNECD)

Reflecting the change in demographics across the Nation, the number of federally designated Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) continues to grow yearly. Yet many of these institutions join the ranks of HSIs without having an established mission to serve underrepresented communities, and those of the Latinx community, specifically. As a result, much work has been dedicated to conceptualizing “servingness,” seeking to position institutions to reflect and act in their role to ensure representation and engagement of the Latinx community. However, little is known about how current servingness practices at these institutions translate to impact the experiences of engineering graduate students and, in turn, how institutional policies and practices may be aiding or barricading these students’ path to success. As the calls to expand the post-baccalaureate opportunities of the Latinx community abound, it becomes imperative to gain a deeper understanding of these factors impacting their success.
One of the most influential factors in a graduate student's experience, at both the master’s and doctoral levels, is their advising relationship, which can directly influence their pathway to degree completion. The support provided by an advisor—characterized as having the potential to become an aid or barrier to a graduate student’s success—can influence a graduate student’s self-efficacy beliefs in areas relating to the completion of their terminal document (e.g., their confidence in completing their thesis, dissertation, or project report). It is also important to consider with intentionality the influence of the institutional policies, grounded in the institution’s enactment of its mission, on the support an advisor can provide. Thus, this pilot study examines the extent to which a faculty advisor's instrumental and psychosocial support influences graduate students’ self-efficacy for the tasks related to completing their terminal document. Further, we explore the effect of institutional context, based on the assumption that “servingness” would impart different and/or explicit policies to support students, by comparing graduate student self-efficacy scores at HSIs and non-HSIs. The following questions guide the study: (1) To what extent do instrumental and psychosocial advisor support influence engineering graduate students’ thesis self-efficacy? (2) How does institutional context influence the types of support advisors provide and its relationship to graduate students’ thesis self-efficacy?
This work presents our exploration of the research questions using a survey designed to explore graduate students' thesis self-efficacy and their perceptions of advisor support. We report on data collected from 576 graduate students across 25 institutions, including HSIs (n=14) and non-HSIs with a high enrollment of underrepresented students at the graduate level (n=11). Our analysis is underpinned by Lent’s Social Cognitive Career Theory, which posits that sources of support can influence self-efficacy beliefs and work-related trajectories. Additionally, we use Garcia’s Multidimensional Conceptual Framework for Servingness to conceptualize and interrogate advisor support as a servingness practice. Initial findings show a positive trend between a student’s thesis self-efficacy and a positive perception of the instrumental and psychosocial support provided by their advisor. This pilot study’s results can serve as a first step in fostering greater alignment between servingness practices and graduate students’ support needs, positioning institutions and engineering graduate programs, specifically, to better promote their success.