Overview of Project
Our work builds on research highlighting minoritized engineering students’ educational assets by contextualizing how these assets can be utilized in a specific classroom environment: engineering design-based courses. Engineering design courses are a staple of the undergraduate engineering curriculum. The courses require students to integrate their creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills. Design courses are crucial aspects of the professional formation of engineers. This project provides a perspective that is currently missing from the professional formation of engineers and will help educators improve the engineering curriculum by making it more inclusive for all students
The project will use an exploratory sequential mixed-methods research design to expand community cultural wealth (CCW) theory for application in engineering design courses.
Research Questions
We will use an exploratory sequential mixed method design to answer our research questions:
RQ1. How are the recontextualized forms of CCW reflected in students’ lived experiences?
RQ2. How do the recontextualized forms of CCW shape students’ experiences in design-based engineering courses?
RQ3. To what extent does the CCW instrument, contextualized for engineering design courses, capture and measure the diverse dimensions of cultural wealth within the target community?
RQ4. To what extent do students believe they have had opportunities to practice their design-based forms of capital? What impact do these opportunities have on their identity development or self-efficacy?
Intellectual Merit
This research will make a significant theoretical contribution by extending the use of an asset-based framework, CCW, to engineering design courses. Thus, our survey development work will foster new knowledge about how cultural wealth influences crucial aspects of the professional formation of engineers through problem-solving, creativity, and innovative design solutions. It will promote a nuanced understanding of the intersection between minoritized students’ assets and how they approach design challenges. Our work makes a significant methodological contribution in providing an example of QuantCrit survey development that aligns with recent calls for methodological activism that centers on minoritized students’ experiences. It has the potential to transform engineering education by enabling and inspiring the incorporation of a broader conceptualization of student assets via curricular changes for engineering design courses—a staple of the engineering curriculum.
Broader Impacts
Findings from our study offer significant and far-reaching benefits to the professional formation of engineers. The new instrument we develop will promote a deeper understanding of design-based CCW among engineering students, allowing educators and institutions to recognize and celebrate the diverse cultural assets that minoritized students bring to engineering. Our dissemination plan provides stakeholders with best practices and opportunities to utilize our findings to enhance their practice. By developing and disseminating an open-source scale manual and facilitating workshops to collaboratively develop plans for use of the CCW instrument, instructors and researchers can identify and address equity gaps in how design courses are taught. As a result, they can align their pedagogy to better recognize and value minoritized students’ design-based capital, which will empower students to leverage their cultural strengths and will enhance their overall educational experience and potential success as students and professionals.
Collaborator
Julie P. Martin, PhD
EETI Director and Professor of Engineering Education
University of Georgia