2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Exploring Black male participation on undergraduate engineering student teams using interpretative phenomenological analysis (Work in Progress)

Presented at Minorities in Engineering Division(MIND) Technical Session 2

Engineering education requires students to successfully navigate participation in student teams at several stages throughout their undergraduate education. As a result, researchers have explored key factors for successful teaching and learning through student team projects and assignments. However, few researchers have explored the connection between racial identity and experience on undergraduate student teams. This work-in-progress paper describes a recently initiated NSF project investigating the experiences of Black men on undergraduate engineering student teams. Our project will integrate two complementary research approaches, interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) with photo-elicitation methods, to better understand how Black male experiences on undergraduate student teams might inform instructors’ approaches to supporting undergraduate engineering student projects. We hope that our findings will provide theoretical support for a deeper exploration of the experiences of Black men on student teams. In addition, we hope our findings inspire other researchers to more deeply investigate the connection between various aspects of identity and their implications for students’ participation in undergraduate engineering teamwork.

Authors

Dr. Royce A Francis http://orcid.org/https://0000-0001-8240-4903 The George Washington University [biography]

Dr. Royce Francis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering [EMSE] at the George Washington University. At George Washington, Dr. Francis's engineering education research explores the relationships between professional identity formation and engineering judgment. His other research interests include infrastructure resilience and risk assessment, and safer chemicals decision making.
Dr. Jerrod A Henderson http://orcid.org/https://0000-0002-0501-5805 William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering [biography]

Dr. Jerrod A. Henderson (“Dr. J”) is an Assistant Professor in the William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in the Cullen College of Engineering at the University of Houston (UH).

He began his higher education pursuits at Morehouse College and North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, where he earned degrees in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering as a part of the Atlanta University Center’s Dual Degree in Engineering Program. While in college, he was a Ronald E. McNair Scholar, which afforded him the opportunity to intern at NASA Langley. He also earned distinction as a Phi Beta Kappa member and an American Chemical Society Scholar. Dr. Henderson completed his Ph.D. in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. As a graduate student, he was a NASA Harriet G. Jenkins Graduate Fellow and mentor for the Summer Research Opportunities Program.

Dr. Henderson has dedicated his career to increasing the number of students who are in pathways to pursue STEM careers. He believes that exposing students to STEM early will have a lasting impact on their lives and academic pursuits. He co-founded the St. Elmo Brady STEM Academy (SEBA). SEBA is an educational intervention that introduces underrepresented and underserved fourth and fifth-grade students and their families to hands-on STEM experiences.

Dr. Henderson is the immediate past Director of the Program for Mastery in Engineering Studies (PROMES, pronounced “promise”), a program aimed at increasing engineering student achievement, engagement, and graduation rates. His research group seeks to understand engineering identity trajectories and success mechanisms throughout lifespans using action-based participatory research and novel methodologies such as photovoice, IPA, and draw-an-engineer and the development of research-informed interventions to improve student success.

He was most recently recognized by INSIGHT Into Diversity Magazine as an Inspiring STEM Leader, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences (LAS) Outstanding Young Alumni Award, Career Communications Group with a Black Engineer of the Year Award for college-level promotion of engineering education and a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2023 to advance his work that centers engineering identities of Black men in engineering.
Dr. David Horton Jr University of Houston [biography]

Dr. Horton is a Research Assistant Professor for STEM/Engineering Education. His research addresses the curricular and co-curricular experiences of marginalized groups within higher education, such as Black males, women,
and faculty of color. His work is most situated within minority serving institutions. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees in history from Dallas Baptist University. He earned his Ph.D. in
Higher Education Administration from the University of Florida in 2009.

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 22, 2025, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 25, 2025

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race/ethnicity
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