Exposure matters: Understanding the experiences of rural cultures

Board 114: Community Cultures: Broadening Participation By Understanding How Rural Communities Support Engineering as a College Major Choice

“…These elements were highlighted in this preliminary analysis because, in accordance with SCCT, they represented environmental influences that have previously been shown to be particularly important for the career choices of Appalachian youth. [1][2][3]11]. Comprehensive exploration of RQ1 requires analysis of follow-up interviews, which are ongoing through the end of the Spring 2018 semester.…”

“…Efforts to spark interest in engineering among PreK-12 students have increased substantially in recent years both to expand the number of engineers generally and to increase the diversity of the field. While many efforts seek to spark and develop student interest in engineering, past research has demonstrated that interest is not always sufficient to help students pursue engineering majors, particularly for rural students [1][2][3]. In many rural communities, influential adults (family, friends, teachers) often provide the primary support for engineering as a career choice, while factors such as lack of role models, lack of social and cultural capital, and limited course availability may all act as potential inhibitors.…”

Board 151: Broadening the Participation of Rural Students in Engineering: Preliminary Findings on the Perspectives of Key Community Members

“…Past studies have found that rural students have limited access to information about college and financial aid [6,7], rural schools often lack necessary resources to prepare students for higher education [6,8], and rural communities face significant economic challenges and do not foster a college culture [9,10]. However, several researchers have also emphasized the critical role community values play in shaping rural students' educational aspirations [4,11]. These findings led directly to the current study, which seeks to explore communities more holistically to understand how they effectively support and encourage college enrollment and engineering major choice for rural students.…”

Broadening the Participation of Rural Students in Engineering: Exploring Community Perspectives

“…Given such factors, work by Carrico, Matusovich, Boynton, and Paretti explored engineering career choice among rural high schools in the Appalachian regions of Virginia and Tennessee [8][9][10][11][12][13]. This work found that students' pathways to a career choice were heavily influenced by the people and values of the local community; family, teachers, and friends, in particular, often played a key role in exposing students to engineering majors and careers related to their general interest in engineering or related fields (e.g., math, physics) [10,13].…”