A Qualitative Study Investigating How First-Year Engineering Students' Value Beliefs Influence their Choice of Selecting an Engineering Major

Ortega-Alvarez, Juan David; Atiq, S. Zahra; Rodríguez-Simmonds, Héctor Enrique

doi:10.18260/p.26417

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…This study also affirms prior research findings that, among other reasons, students select engineering because it promises practical utility and financial stability (Ortega-Alvarez, Atiqu, Rodriguez-Simmonds, 2016) that will allow them to provide for their families. And, while literature on Latino men often highlights a cultural and gender-motivated need to become financial providers (Saenz, Mercedes, Rodriguez, & Garcia Louis, 2017), this study demonstrates that Latina students in engineering may also feel that often masculine-attributed desire, perhaps as a result of their positioning within a male-dominated, potentially high-earning field.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

BecomingLa Ingeniera: Examining the Engineering Identity Development of Undergraduate Latina Students

Rodriguez

Doran

Sissel

2019

Journal of Latinos and Education

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Latina students are enrolling in postsecondary education in high numbers, yet their enrollment in engineering fields remains low. Part of the challenge Latina students face is a struggle to develop a strong professional identity as an engineer. Using a phenomenological approach, this study examined the experiences of undergraduate Latina engineering students. Researchers used a four-step process to understand the meaning-making process of identity formation. Latina engineering students developed professional identities through interactions with family members, engagement with identity-based organizations, and in relation to their other identities.Implications include the need to enhance family involvement, provide organizational support, and consider intersecting identities.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

BecomingLa Ingeniera: Examining the Engineering Identity Development of Undergraduate Latina Students

Rodriguez

Doran

Sissel

2019

Journal of Latinos and Education

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“…Others have investigated what factors influence students' choices of major [6,13,26] . For example, Ortega-Alvarez and others examined engineering students' values [19] .They coded interview transcripts and survey responses into codes for value, competence, and expectation (categories for expectancy-value theory). Most reasons fell into one of these categories, but they found that family and being well informed about career choice were additional reasons not explained by the theory.…”

Section: Major Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Helping First-Year Engineering Students Select a Major

VanDeGrift

Liao

2017 ASEE Annual Conference &Amp; Exposition Proceedings

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This evidence-based practice paper evaluates a set of resources to help first-year engineering students choose their major among four fields. Choosing a major can be a daunting task for firstyear college students, especially if the choices span fields with which students have little experience. In order to provide first-year engineering students time to discern, a set of resources and course activities were designed to assist students in this decision-making process. The educational theory that serves as a framework for this study is social cognitive career theory, developed by Lent, Brown, and Hackett in 1994. In particular, resources, activities, and experiences in the introduction to engineering course were designed to assist students with selfefficacy beliefs and personal goals. At this University all engineering and computer science students take an introduction to engineering course that covers the engineering process, teamwork, communication skills, the different branches of engineering, ethics, and co-curricular and extracurricular opportunities. Section sizes are ~30 students, so students can build community with peers and their professor. The professor of the Introduction to Engineering course is the academic advisor for his/her set of students. Students declare or confirm their major by the end of the first semester. Resources to help students choose a major include laboratories, advisor meetings, student panels, a semesterlong team project, student chapters of professional society meetings, and on-line resources. In the fall 2012 offering of the course, we collected paper surveys from students, asking them to rate the effectiveness of a suite of resources in helping them choose their major. We asked about exposure to engineering and/or computer science prior to entering college and course materials and activities that were helpful for selecting a major. Based on the responses, we created a new set of videos and blogs featuring upper-class students who shared their journeys in how they chose their major and what they value about their major. We added new labs for the 2015 version. In fall 2015, we again asked students about the impact of all the course activities and their confidence in their major selection. The professor as advisor, laboratories and the course project have the most impact on helping students decide their major. More informational activities such as talking to other students, attending club meetings, and watching videos of other students had less impact. Based on these results, students seem to need personal, hands-on experience to determine if their self-efficacy beliefs and the values of the outcomes align with the intended major. 145 of 154 (94.2%) of students were somewhat or very confident about their major at the end of the semester. This paper describes a suite of resources and activities along with students' evaluation of those materials in terms of discernment of their major. By disseminating the information, other universities can adopt and adapt these activities to use in t...

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Who Tells Your Story? A Card-Sort Activity for Eliciting Authentic Narratives

Brent¹,

Orr

Brawner

et al. 2021

International Journal of Qualitative Methods

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Card sorting has been used in qualitative studies in various fields to better understand how individuals organize information and make choices based on it. As part of a mixed-methods study of why Black engineering students initially chose their major and why they subsequently decided to persist in or switch out of it, we developed a card-sort activity and used it in 79 semi-structured student interviews. Besides generating data relevant to the mission of our study, the activity shifted the students' focus to their own experiences and away from the interviewers, who were not matched with them on race or age and with whom there was a power differential (interviewers with doctorates talking with undergraduates). The article contains a brief overview of the broader study, a description of steps taken to promote authentic storytelling by the interviewees, an outline of the development and application of the card-sort activity, representative findings, and recommendations for other researchers contemplating using a similar technique. We believe our experience in using the card-sort technique and our subsequent mixed-method analysis of the resulting data will benefit qualitative researchers seeking authentic stories.

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A Qualitative Study Investigating How First-Year Engineering Students' Value Beliefs Influence their Choice of Selecting an Engineering Major

Cited by 4 publications

References 8 publications

BecomingLa Ingeniera: Examining the Engineering Identity Development of Undergraduate Latina Students

BecomingLa Ingeniera: Examining the Engineering Identity Development of Undergraduate Latina Students

Helping First-Year Engineering Students Select a Major

Who Tells Your Story? A Card-Sort Activity for Eliciting Authentic Narratives

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