TY - JOUR
T1 - Recognizing engineering students' funds of knowledge
T2 - 126th ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition: Charged Up for the Next 125 Years, ASEE 2019
AU - Verdín, Dina
AU - Smith, Jessica Mary
AU - Lucena, Juan C.
N1 - Funding Information:
Dina Verdín is a Ph.D. Candidate in Engineering Education and M.S. student in Industrial Engineering at Purdue University. She completed her B.S. in Industrial and Systems Engineering at San José State University. Dina is a 2016 recipient of the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship and an Honorable Mention for the Ford Foundation Fellowship Program. Her research interest focuses on changing the deficit base perspective of first-generation college students by providing asset-based approaches to understanding this population. Dina is interested in understanding how first-generation college students author their identities as engineers and negotiate their multiple identities in the current culture of engineering.
Funding Information:
This work was supported through funding by the National Science Foundation under EAGER Grant No. (1734044). Interview data of first-year engineering students came from funding supported by the National Science Foundation under CAREER Grant No. (1554057). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect ht evews iof the aNtional cSience oFution. nda
Funding Information:
Jessica M. Smith is Associate Professor in the Engineering, Design & Society Division at the Colorado School of Mines and Co-Director of Humanitarian Engineering. She is an anthropologist with two major research areas: 1) the sociocultural dynamics of extractive and energy industries, with a focus on corporate social responsibility, social justice, labor, and gender and 2) engineering education, with a focus on socioeconomic class and social responsibility. She is currently completing a book manuscript on the intersection of engineering and corporate social responsibility. She is the author of Mining Coal and Undermining Gender: Rhythms of Work and Family in the American West (Rutgers University Press, 2014), which was funded by the National Science Foundation and National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2016 the National Academy of Engineering recognized her Corporate Social Responsibility course as a national exemplar in teaching engineering ethics. Professor Smith holds a PhD in Anthropology and a certificate in Women’s Studies from the University of Michigan and bachelor’s degrees in International Studies, Anthropology and Latin American Studies from Macalester College.
Publisher Copyright:
© American Society for Engineering Education, 2019.
PY - 2019/6/15
Y1 - 2019/6/15
N2 - This research base paper examines students who are the first in their families to attend college. Our research seeks to understand the role students' funds of knowledge makes in first-generation college students' undergraduate experience. Funds of knowledge are the set of formal/informal knowledge and skills that students learn through family, friends, and communities outside of academic institutions. This paper reports funds of knowledge themes relevant to first-generation college students in engineering and the process of gathering validity evidence to support the funds of knowledge themes. Using ethnographic and interview data, six themes emerged: connecting experiences, community networks, tinkering knowledge, perspective taking, reading people, and mediational skills. Pilot data collected at two institutions were used to run exploratory factor analysis to verify the underlying theoretical structures among the themes. Results of the exploratory factor analysis found that almost all items reliably loaded onto their respective constructs. The funds of knowledge identified in this study are not an exhaustive account, nevertheless uncovering these hidden assets can support first-generation college students to see their experiences as equally valuable knowledge in engineering. We are currently in an ongoing process of collecting a second dataset to perform a confirmatory factor analysis, i.e., the next phase of the validation process for survey instrument development.
AB - This research base paper examines students who are the first in their families to attend college. Our research seeks to understand the role students' funds of knowledge makes in first-generation college students' undergraduate experience. Funds of knowledge are the set of formal/informal knowledge and skills that students learn through family, friends, and communities outside of academic institutions. This paper reports funds of knowledge themes relevant to first-generation college students in engineering and the process of gathering validity evidence to support the funds of knowledge themes. Using ethnographic and interview data, six themes emerged: connecting experiences, community networks, tinkering knowledge, perspective taking, reading people, and mediational skills. Pilot data collected at two institutions were used to run exploratory factor analysis to verify the underlying theoretical structures among the themes. Results of the exploratory factor analysis found that almost all items reliably loaded onto their respective constructs. The funds of knowledge identified in this study are not an exhaustive account, nevertheless uncovering these hidden assets can support first-generation college students to see their experiences as equally valuable knowledge in engineering. We are currently in an ongoing process of collecting a second dataset to perform a confirmatory factor analysis, i.e., the next phase of the validation process for survey instrument development.
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M3 - Conference article
AN - SCOPUS:85078806758
SN - 2153-5965
JO - ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings
JF - ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings
Y2 - 15 June 2019 through 19 June 2019
ER -