TY - GEN
T1 - Topical concerns and critical questions engineering students want/need answers to
T2 - 48th Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE 2018
AU - Rodriguez, Armando
AU - Pradhan, Pragyan A.
AU - Puttannaiah, Karan
AU - Das, Nirangkush
AU - Mondal, Kaustav
AU - Sarkar, Aratrik
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 IEEE.
PY - 2018/7/2
Y1 - 2018/7/2
N2 - This Research to Practice Full Paper examines which topical concerns and critical questions engineering students want/need answers to - based on a survey associated with a list of 201 critical questions (addressing 17 topics) asked by students since 2001. Over this period, the lead author has run an Academic Success and Professional Development (ASAP) mentoring-scholarship program (supported by NSF/industrial funding) aimed at recruiting, training, graduating and placing engineering students. This project-centric program at Arizona State University (ASU) - and the associated community of practice (consisting of learners and faculty-industry-peer mentors), while currently focusing on upper-division transfer students, serves upper-division non-transfers and some graduate students. The list of topics and questions was created to help students ask questions and think about the opportunities/challenges before them. Data for the most recent cohort of 74 scholars is presented and analyzed. It is shown how the list of selected critical topics and questions varies depends on gender, minority status and age. Analysis of the data shows that higher-risk (higher-context) groups (e.g. women, underrepresented minorities) focus more on shorter-term career goals while lower-risk groups focus more on longer-term career and life-planning goals. The information presented should be helpful to program leaders, administrators and educators advising engineering students.
AB - This Research to Practice Full Paper examines which topical concerns and critical questions engineering students want/need answers to - based on a survey associated with a list of 201 critical questions (addressing 17 topics) asked by students since 2001. Over this period, the lead author has run an Academic Success and Professional Development (ASAP) mentoring-scholarship program (supported by NSF/industrial funding) aimed at recruiting, training, graduating and placing engineering students. This project-centric program at Arizona State University (ASU) - and the associated community of practice (consisting of learners and faculty-industry-peer mentors), while currently focusing on upper-division transfer students, serves upper-division non-transfers and some graduate students. The list of topics and questions was created to help students ask questions and think about the opportunities/challenges before them. Data for the most recent cohort of 74 scholars is presented and analyzed. It is shown how the list of selected critical topics and questions varies depends on gender, minority status and age. Analysis of the data shows that higher-risk (higher-context) groups (e.g. women, underrepresented minorities) focus more on shorter-term career goals while lower-risk groups focus more on longer-term career and life-planning goals. The information presented should be helpful to program leaders, administrators and educators advising engineering students.
KW - Academic success
KW - Career-shaping projects
KW - Context diversity
KW - Mentoring
KW - Professional development
KW - Scholarships
KW - Transfer students
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85063512580&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85063512580&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/FIE.2018.8658625
DO - 10.1109/FIE.2018.8658625
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85063512580
T3 - Proceedings - Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE
BT - Frontiers in Education
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Y2 - 3 October 2018 through 6 October 2018
ER -