I have been working on a project intended to understand how first-generation college students’ funds of knowledge supports their persistence in engineering. This project is in collaboration with Drs. Jessica Smith and Juan Lucena from Colorado School of Mines.
![](https://faculty.engineering.asu.edu/verdin/wp-content/uploads/sites/45/2020/11/FOK_Poster_ASEE19_v2-1500x964.jpg)
Funds of Knowledge Survey Instrument
We currently have a manuscript in review that describes our process of developing a survey scale that captured the funds of knowledge of low-income first-generation college students. The ten constructs illustrated below were developed through ethnographic interview data of ten low-income first-generation college students studying engineering. The lived experiences of our sampled participants allow us to understand how their accumulated bodies of knowledge from their households, community, or their work experiences.
![](https://faculty.engineering.asu.edu/verdin/wp-content/uploads/sites/45/2020/09/FOK_Constructs-edited.png)
![](https://faculty.engineering.asu.edu/verdin/wp-content/uploads/sites/45/2020/09/EEC_FOK_Poster_DVerdin-v2-1500x1159.jpg)