An ethnographic study of social justice themes in engineering education
Theodore von Karman situates the engineering discipline, saying, “Scientists study the world as i... more Theodore von Karman situates the engineering discipline, saying, “Scientists study the world as it is; engineers create the world that has never been.” This is a widely accepted characterizationof the engineering discipline—the pursuit of reinventing the world for the benefit of humanity. This view of engineering embodies two assumptions—first, that the current state of things is not ideal, and second, that the work of engineering results in improving the current state of things. For instance, the Engineer of 2000 is followed by the Engineer of 2020. What I endeavored over the period of nearly one and one-half years was to discover, probe, and investigate engineers within and without the classroom environment of a firstyearengineering course at a major research institution in the Midwest. I did not begin with numerous hypotheses to this fieldwork, but instead relied upon the Chicago-style tradition of semi-journalistic ethnography (Anderson, 2003; Burgess, 1984; Park, 1921). In essence, my approach to student observations takes much from fundamental and accepted guidelines of observation, (Burgess, 1984; Frankfort-Nachmias & Nachmias, 1996; Hammersley & Atkinson, 1983; Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2004; Strauss, 1987), including those with special instructions on undergraduate work (Spradley, 1979, 1980), with the caveat that I focus as much as possible on the relaying of the story (Kent, 1993) and less upon the semanticconstruction of hierarchic sets to build a primary or even final ethnosphere. In addition to presenting the story that emerged by observing students, I also devote time to encouraging the reader to engage in ethnography—not just as a research tool, but as a tool for social change—a mechanism for promoting social justice.Since this is a book chapter, my intentions for this work do not entirely fit the journal model. I will not only provide example ethnography from first principles and seed synergistic dialogue, but I will also encourage my peers to take up the mantle of field observation. In other words, if you, the reader, strive with me to observe students “in the wild,” I will endeavour to provide signposts to guide your journey. I do not intend to detail the complete history of social justice in the Western world, nor will I pretend that ethnography containsthe panacea for all engineering education issues. Nevertheless, ethnography holds promise to hold a mirror to the institution of engineering education (and education as a whole) toreflect where the aims of the institution are not necessarily consistent with the modes of instruction or evaluation (Lumina Foundation, 2008; Reyna, Reindl, Witham, Stanley, & National Governors Association, 2010; Shuman, 2005). The influence of the military industrial complex on the content and process of higher education is diminishing (Bix, 2005). The academy’s foray into issues such as sustainability indicate that engineers and engineeringeducation are positioning themselves to be direct and conscious elements of social change. (McDonnell & Elmore, 1987; National Science Foundation, 2008) If engineers are to take upon themselves the mantle of directing social change, then ethnography offers a robust platform via which engineers can become immersed in the world of the beneficiaries of their work, whether the beneficiary is a county municipality in need of a new bridge or a small town in need of a new well
in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. He completed his doctorate in engineering educa... more in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. He completed his doctorate in engineering education from Purdue University's School of Engineering Education. Previously, he received an M.S. in earth and planetary sciences studying geospatial imaging, and an M.S. in physics studying high-pressure, high-temperature FT-IR spectroscopy in heavy water, both from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He holds a B.S.E. in engineering physics with a concentration in electrical engineering from Case Western Reserve University. His academic interests include longitudinal analysis, visualization, semantics, team formation, gender issues, existential phenomenology, and lagomorph physiology.
and a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Hawaii. He is currently a Profess... more and a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Hawaii. He is currently a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Gonzaga University. Before joining Gonzaga University, he worked at Eastern Washington University, University of Arizona, and in industry, where he held both engineering and management positions at Siemens Semiconductors, IKOS Systems, and Marconi Communications. Dr. Talarico research interests include digital and mixed analog/digital integrated circuits and systems, computer-aided design methodologies, and design and analysis of embedded systems-onchip.
The Multiple-Institution Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development (MIDFIEL... more The Multiple-Institution Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development (MIDFIELD) contains academic records for students at ten partner institutions comprising over 10% of the United States' engineering students. The potential of MIDFIELD for curricular exploration is vast and has never been previously attempted. By using department graduation requirements for each ABET EAC-accredited MIDFIELD program and more than 400,000 engineering students, we construct a set of curricular checkpoints based on semester requirements being fully completed or not. While we discovered expected patterns within the construction of the metric, we also discovered indicators that engineering majors are vastly more flexible than previously thought. Almost 50% of students who graduated with degrees in engineering do not complete every course required by their major in their first, four semesters in the traditional manner. Furthermore, students not only enjoy flexibility in their early curricula but also enjoy through their later semesters where specialization courses dominate the curriculum. The aim of this research is to provide a new metric for describing the flexibility of engineering majors and further the discussion into how student progression through a major will require significant, future work.
Assessing Happiness in Undergraduate Engineering Students
2022 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), Oct 8, 2022
Pathways and Outcomes of Rural Students in Engineering
2019 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)
This full paper aims to investigate students’ academic outcomes based on their rurality classific... more This full paper aims to investigate students’ academic outcomes based on their rurality classification. Despite the large number of studies investigating students’ demographics across engineering disciplines, few studies consider how rurality - coming from a rural area - influences students’ academic performance. This study also aims to study the variety of demographic variables and pre-college characteristics including home zip code at matriculation as a proxy for point of origin among engineering undergraduate students. Moreover, this study investigates the effects of these characteristics, on undergraduate students’ likelihood of graduation and academic success across seven institutions.This is a quantitative study using a longitudinal data from multiple institutions. Students’ home zip code is used to classify students to four rurality classifications using the urban-centric locale codes defined by U.S. Census Bureau. The study applies a logit regression on a dataset that includes 30,763 students to investigate the likelihood of graduation of engineering undergraduate students from seven institution. The study then applies an ordinary least squares linear regression model to a subset of 21,311 students who managed to graduate from the same institutions to investigate students’ graduation GPA as a proxy of student success based on students’ rurality classification. This study also analysis the results disaggregating students based on their institutions. Although the result show that there are different patterns among institutions, but generally, rural students seem at a disadvantage for both GPA and graduation at most institutions.
Factors Influencing Faculty Decisions to Teach LGBTQ Content in Undergraduate Nursing Programs
Nursing Education Perspectives
Analyzing and Comparing First-Year Engineering Course Requirements among Institutions
There have been a number of studies investigating First Year Engineering (FYE) curricula pathway,... more There have been a number of studies investigating First Year Engineering (FYE) curricula pathway, but very few discuss the different curricula pathways among institutions with FYE matriculation. This study aims to analyze and present the curricular pathways of three institutions. The study also presents the trends and changes in FYE curricula pathways across the past 30 years. This research uses the course catalogs of three large engineering institutions. The courses required for FYE students is categorized into six categories: general engineering, mathematics, science, engineering for a specific major, computer science and general
He focuses his work between teaching the first two years of introductory engineering and engineer... more He focuses his work between teaching the first two years of introductory engineering and engineering design and research in student progression. Previously, he was a special title series assistant professor in electrical engineering at the University of Kentucky, and the KEEN Program Coordinator at Gonzaga University in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. He completed his doctorate in engineering education from Purdue University's School of Engineering Education. Previously, he received an M.S. in earth and planetary sciences studying geospatial imaging, and an M.S. in physics studying high-pressure, high-temperature FT-IR spectroscopy in heavy water, both from the
He focuses his work between teaching the first two years of introductory engineering and engineer... more He focuses his work between teaching the first two years of introductory engineering and engineering design and research in student progression. Previously, he was a special title series assistant professor in electrical engineering at the University of Kentucky, and the KEEN Program Coordinator at Gonzaga University in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. He completed his doctorate in engineering education from Purdue University's School of Engineering Education. Previously, he received an M.S. in earth and planetary sciences studying geospatial imaging, and an M.S. in physics studying high-pressure, high-temperature FT-IR spectroscopy in heavy water, both from the
Describing the Migration of Students within Engineering
The number of students leaving their initial engineering discipline for other engineering discipl... more The number of students leaving their initial engineering discipline for other engineering disciplines and other fields of study is significant. This paper displays and describes the development of a model of the pathways taken by these students through their undergraduate academic careers. Specifically this paper looks at the migration of engineering students within various disciplines of engineering. This study uses the records of over 135,000 engineering student records from the Multiple-Institution Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development (MIDFIELD). This research shows that approximately 20% of engineering students graduate from an engineering discipline other than that into which they matriculated, and approximately 40% of students who matriculate into an engineering discipline leave the field of engineering. This research also found that there are specific pathways popular with engineering students.
Promoting more effective communication of stories in the data
2014 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE) Proceedings, 2014
Practitioners in engineering education, in studying and presenting their quantitative data, typic... more Practitioners in engineering education, in studying and presenting their quantitative data, typically seek meaning - an inherently rhetorical activity. Data displays are an important part of this discourse. Visual conventions (pie charts, bar charts, and line charts, for example) can help or hinder the discovery of meaning in a data set. Our work concerns the visual rhetoric of this community: we assess current conventions and promote contemporary approaches to more effectively discover and communicate stories in the data. In this work in progress, we present three data displays from the Journal of Engineering Education representing commonly encountered, conventional designs. We assess the rhetorical merits and shortcomings of the displays, redesign them using principles and practices from the data visualization community, and discuss the results. We conclude that intentional design of data displays can help researchers explore their data, discover questions that might not have arisen otherwise, and convey compelling messages to their audiences.
Ac 2010-1835: Describing the Pathways of Students Continuing in and Leaving Engineering
... Ida Ngambeki, Purdue University is a doctoral student at Purdue's School of ... Demetra ... more ... Ida Ngambeki, Purdue University is a doctoral student at Purdue's School of ... Demetra Evangelou, Purdue University Demetra Evangelou is an Assistant Professor in Engineering Education ... This research shows that approximately 20% of engineering students graduate from an ...
D Chapter 2 d An ethnogrAphic study of sociAl justice themes in engineering educAtion
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