Investigating the relations of ethnicity to female students' perceptions ...

Session T1H

Investigating the Relations of Ethnicity to Female Students’ Perceptions and Intention to Major in Engineering Using Social Cognitive Theory Julie Martin Trenor1, Shirley L. Yu 2, Ting-Ling Sha 3, Katherine S. Zerda 4, and Consuelo L. Waight 5 University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204 Abstract - This paper describes the first phase of a mixedmethod study employing a social cognitive theoretical framework that emphasizes the interplay of person factors, environment and behavior. The purpose of the study was to investigate the relations of ethnicity to female students’ perceptions and intention to major in engineering. An ethnically diverse sample of female engineering undergraduates (N=160) at an urban research university completed an online survey, which was developed by adapting relevant measures from published instruments in the educational psychology and engineering education literature. Results indicated a significant difference in the way participants from different ethnic groups perceived the field of engineering. Additionally, significant differences in perceived social supports for achieving their engineering educational and career plans were found based on the number of generations in a participant’s family born in the United States and enrolled in college. No significant differences in perceived supports, barriers, sense of belonging, or motivation were found based on ethnic group membership. Index Terms - Ethnicity, Female, First generation in college, Persistence, Social Cognitive Career Theory INTRODUCTION AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK As our nation’s demand for a skilled technical workforce increases, women remain a largely untapped resource. While considerable attention has been paid in the literature to the issue of attracting and retaining more females in the engineering “pipeline”, few studies have gained access to ethnically diverse female engineering student populations [16]. For the U.S. to remain competitive in today’s global economy, however, it is essential to recruit and retain more women from diverse backgrounds into the field of engineering. This study builds on the work of engineering educators and social scientists, particularly the works of Seymour and Hewitt [7], Lent and colleagues [8-11] Besterfield-Sacre and colleagues [1, 12-14] and Goodenow

[15]. An examination of the current body of work in engineering education and educational psychology reveals gaps in our understanding of the contextual and person variables that influence the persistence of ethnically diverse female students in undergraduate engineering majors, and a need to better link research activities in the two fields. A better understanding of these contextual and person factors influencing under-represented students must be achieved if we are to address technical workforce demands. This work was conducted at the University of Houston (UH), an urban university located in the fourth-largest city in the United States. Approximately 23% of undergraduate engineering students at UH are female. UH is well suited for conducting this research due to the rich diversity of its student body. In fact, it is the most ethnically diverse research institution in the country [16]; 59% of female engineering undergraduates enrolled in Fall 2006 reported belonging to an ethnic minority group (28% Hispanic, 20% Asian, and 11% African American students), and an additional 13% were classified by the university as international students and may also self-identify with one of the ethnic groups mentioned above. Investigating engineering student persistence with this diverse student population may offer additional insights that have not been thoroughly addressed in previous work. Attrition problems at UH mirror national trends [7, 17], and enrollment data indicate that large percentages of our female students switch to non-engineering majors before graduating. Furthermore, many “switchers” change majors within their first few semesters on campus, often before entering the first technical engineering courses. This study aims to investigate the interplay of person factors, environment and behavior as they relate to female students’ perceptions and intention to major in engineering. The work employs a social cognitive theoretical framework rooted in Bandura’s [18] work, first applied to career choice by Betz and Hackett [19], and further developed by Lent and colleagues [8]. Social cognitive theory as it is applied to career choices and development, termed social cognitive

1

Julie Martin Trenor, Research Assistant Professor and Director of Undergraduate Student Recruitment and Retention, Cullen College of Engineering, [email protected] 2 Shirley L. Yu, Associate Professor, Department of Educational Psychology, College of Education, [email protected] 3 Ting-Ling Sha, Ph.D. student, Department of Educational Psychology, College of Education, [email protected] 4 Katherine S. Zerda, Research Assistant Professor, Cullen College of Engineering, [email protected] 5 Consuelo L. Waight, Assistant Professor, Department of Human Resource Development, College of Technology, [email protected]

4244-1084-3/07/$25.00 ©2007 IEEE October 10 – 13, 2007, Milwaukee, WI 37th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference T1H-7

Session T1H career theory (SCCT), hypothesizes that an individual’s career choice processes and development do not occur in a social vacuum. Rather, a variety of distal, background and proximal, contemporary environmental and person variables directly influence and/or moderate career choice processes and behavior [8, 11]. These processes are intimately and reciprocally connected to contextual (environmental) variables such as financial status, social support, family influences, and barriers, as well as cognitive person variables (e.g. selfefficacy, outcomes and goals) and other personal characteristics such as ethnicity and gender [8]. Seymour and Hewitt assert that contextual factors are particularly influential for female students and those belonging to ethnic minority groups [7]. Goodenow [15] defines belonging as “a student’s sense of being accepted, valued, included, and encouraged by others (teachers and peers) in the academic classroom setting and to be an important part of the life and activity of the class.” This has been found to be related to two components of motivation: expectancies and values, which in turn influence academic achievement. Goodenow found that expectancies of female students are more significantly impacted by sense of belonging and teacher support than for males. In fact, the quality of student-teacher relationships was the single most important component in determining effort and achievement for female students. In the higher education literature, the quality of effort expended in experiences with faculty, among other student interaction with campus environment factors, has been shown to be related to academic achievement and persistence. While social cognitive career theory has often been applied to the math and science domain [5, 20], fewer studies have focused on engineering students, particularly with samples of women and students of color [21-24]. Lent and colleagues [9, 10] used SCCT to explore the relationship of contextual supports and barriers among engineering students. In one study [9], the sample consisted of predominantly white male students. Another study was conducted with students (75% male) at a predominantly white school and two historically black universities [10]. These samples reported strong levels of environmental supports and weak barriers. The authors call for future SCCT research to include more female students, as well as students with more variability in perceptions of barriers and supports, students of varying academic levels, and other educational settings, as well as the development of theory-derived interventions for underrepresented groups in engineering [10]. This work addresses these recommendations by investigating antecedents of persistence of ethnically diverse female engineering students with varying levels of perceived barriers and supports by investigating the following research questions: • How is ethnicity related to female students’ perceptions and experiences related to engineering?

•

How do these factors influence female students’ intentions to persist in engineering majors? The ultimate goal of this project is to develop researchbased interventions and support mechanisms to enhance persistence in engineering majors at the undergraduate level. While many characteristics of this student population are analogous to those at other urban universities and community colleges, institutions serving different student demographics may also glean insight into under-represented populations that will allow them to improve recruitment, retention, and pedagogical practices in order to diversify their student body. METHODOLOGY This paper is an initial report on the results of the first phase of a collaborative study by faculty in the Colleges of Engineering, Education, and Technology at the University of Houston. Phase I consists of the development and implementation of a survey instrument. These results have been subsequently used to develop a semi-structured interview protocol for the second phase of the project, and to identify additional factors to explore in future work. I. Survey Instrument A survey consisting of demographic information and 81 items corresponding to 17 scales was developed by adapting relevant measures from published instruments in the educational psychology, higher education and engineering education literatures. The survey was designed to measure a host of variables, including person variables (ethnicity), contextual variables (perceptions about the field of engineering, sense of belonging and experiences in the university engineering community, social support and barriers for achieving college and career plans), and behavior (persistence goals). The scales discussed in this paper are shown in Table 1, along with the corresponding number of items and Cronbach’s alpha reliability values. Likert-type scales were used; the anchors corresponding to each scale are shown. II. Participants and Procedure All female engineering majors (N=350) enrolled during the Fall 2006 semester were invited to participate in the study via email, announcements, and fliers. The incentive for participation was the chance to win one of several $50 gift cards. The response rate was 46%, with 160 female undergraduate engineering students completing the online survey. Students’ self-reported ethnicity is shown in Table II along with other measures of diversity. The sample was divided into four major ethnicity groups: 1) African American or Black 2) Asian 3) Hispanic 4) White. An additional category was created for students whose ethnicity was reported as “other” or more than one group, although they were not included in the main ethnicity data analyses due to the small number (n=9). Percentages relative to each ethnic


Session T1H Construct Social Supports Barriers

Sense of Belonging and Experiences

Impressions of Engineering Persistence Goals

TABLE I SCALES EMPLOYED IN THE SURVEY INSTRUMENT No. of Scale Sample Item Items Feel that your family members support this Social Support in Achieving College and Career 9 decision. Plans [10] Feel pressure from parents or other important Barriers to Achieving College and Career Plans 5 people to change your major to some other [10] field. There is at least one professor or individual that works in the College of Engineering who I Sense of Belonging [15] 4 feel I can talk to if I have a problem.

Cronbach’s α 0.828 0.712

1=Not At All Likely 5=Extremely Likely

0.624 1=Never 4=Very Often

Experiences with Faculty [25]

8

I have discussed my academic program or course selection with a faculty member in the College of Engineering.

Financial Influences for Studying Engineering [12, 13]

4

I am studying engineering because it will provide me with a lot of money; and I cannot do this in other professions.

0.528

Perception of the Work Engineers Do and The Engineering Profession [12, 13]

7

I expect that engineering will be a rewarding career.

0.820

Major Choice Goals [10]

4

I am fully committed to getting my college degree in engineering.

0.854

group are shown in Table II for students who are among the first generation in their family to enroll in college (i.e. neither parent attended college), who have at least one parent born outside the U.S., are non-native English speakers, and who have no family financial support for their educational expenses. A distinctive aspect of the UH student population is the fact that many students come from families where one or both parents were born outside the U.S. (63% in our sample, n=101). Additionally, many students either immigrated to this country as children or are attending school in the U.S. on international student visas. The survey did not distinguish between immigrant and international student status, but it is known that 83% (n=133) of the sample graduated from high school in the U.S. We utilized a modified version of Fuligni’s [26] definitions of generational status in the country, where first generation indicated that neither students nor their parents were born in the U.S. (i.e. the participant is an immigrant or international student; 38%, n=61), second generation designated an individual who was born in the U.S. but whose parents were born outside the U.S. (21%, n=34), and third generation indicated that the student and at least one parent were born in the U.S. (43% of the sample was third generation or higher, n=68). The sample included undergraduate students from all university classifications: 24% freshman, 19% sophomore, 22% junior, 33% senior. Thirty three percent of participants were in their first year at the university, 26% were second year, 13% were third year, 13% were fourth year, and 15% were fifth year and above. Due to the fact that many UH students (about one-third of all engineering majors) transfer from community or junior colleges, class standing demographics were weighted more heavily toward upper-division university classifications, i.e. there are many first year students who are considered juniors or seniors by the university due to transfer credits. The mean age of the participants was 22.78 years (SD =5.74). More than half (59%) of the students in the sample

Likert Scale

0.731

1=Strongly Disagree 5=Strongly Agree

were employed; 22% of the sample reported working more than 20 hours per week. In many cases, students were working to finance their education. Forty four percent of the participants indicated that none of their expenses were being paid by parents or family. TABLE II SELF-REPORTED DEMOGRAPHICS FOR SAMPLE (N=160) *PERCENTAGES REPORTED ARE WITH RESPECT TO EACH ETHNICITY GROUP Ethnic Group African American or Black Asian Hispanic White Other/ >1

% of sample (n)

1st gen. in college*

≥1 parent born outside U.S.*

Nonnative English speaker*

No family financial support*

11% (17)

12%

65%

12%

41%

20% (32) 29% (47) 34% (55) 6% (9)

30% 53% 12% 22%

100% 85% 21% 100%

72% 64% 16% 22%

47% 35% 53% 33%

RESULTS Data from the online survey were transferred to the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS 14.0) for analysis. I. Ethnicity Data In the first set of analyses, the four ethnic groups were compared on the main variables utilizing ANOVAs with Bonferroni post hoc tests. Results indicated that the four ethnic groups did not differ on perceived social supports, barriers, sense of belonging or experiences in the College of Engineering, or financial influences for studying engineering, all ps > .05. There were also no ethnic group differences in the reported persistence toward major choice goals, p > .05. However, there was a significant difference in the way participants from different ethnic groups perceived the field of engineering, F(3, 147) = 4.035, p < .01, with Asian students reporting more negative perceptions of engineering than did


Session T1H 3.91 ± 0.08 4.5

3.78 ± 0.72

3.54 ± 0.61

4.0 3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0

First

Second

Third

Generational Status in Country

FIGURE 2. PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORTS BY GENERATIONAL STATUS IN COUNTRY.

7.0 6.0 Mean Number of Generations

5.0

Mean Likert Scale Value Perceived Social Supports

Hispanic students (p < .01). Examination of responses to additional questions on the survey indicated that approximately half of the sample knew someone employed as an engineer before enrolling in college, but being a minority student was significantly related to not knowing an engineer, r(159) = 1.194, p < .05. Further examination of the ethnic groups revealed that they differed in generational status in country, F(3, 147) = 26.867, p < .001. Post hoc tests showed that more generations of White students’ families were born in this country than each of the other ethnic groups. More generations of African American students’ families were born in born in the U.S. than those of Asian students, ps < .05 (Figure 1).

Country

College

2.94±2.22 4.47±1.97

5.0 4.0

2.23±1.46 2.35±0.78

2.5±0.80

2.03±0.96

3.0 1.5±0.62

1.62±0.80

2.0 1.0 0.0 African American or Black

Asian

Hispanic

White

Ethnic Group

FIGURE 1. GENERATIONAL STATUS IN COUNTRY AND COLLEGE BY ETHNICITY GROUP.

An ANOVA indicated that the ethnic groups also differed in number of generations in the family to enroll in college, F(3, 142) = 9.807, p < .001. Post hoc tests showed that Hispanic students had significantly fewer generations of their families enrolled in college compared to African American (p < .05) and White students (p < .001) (FIGURE 1). Further analyses indicated that there were ethnic group differences in the highest level of education attained by one or more of the students’ parents, F(3, 146) = 9.516, p < .001, with parents of Hispanic students having significantly lower levels of educational attainment than each of the other three ethnic groups, all ps < .05. II. Generational Status in Country and College Given that we found ethnic group differences in generational status in country, we next utilized generational status in country as the grouping variable in a set of similar ANOVAs with Bonferroni post hoc tests. An ANOVA showed differences between the generational statuses in country on perceived social supports , F(2, 157) = 3.729, p < .05, with post hoc tests indicating that first generation students perceived less social supports for their engineering college and career plans than did second generation students (Figure 2).

Perceived social supports were related to a number of other variables, including a negative correlation to perceived barriers, r(160) = -.360, p < .001. Perceived social supports were also positively correlated with sense of belonging, r(158) = .559, p < .000, experiences with faculty, r(158) = .233, p < .01, and intentions to persist in engineering, r(160) = .299, p < .001. Likewise, experiences with faculty members were positively correlated with both persistence goals, r(158) = .228, p < .01, and sense of belonging in the College of Engineering, r(158) = .359, p < .001. Experiences with faculty were negatively correlated with perceived barriers to college and career plans, r(158) = -.203, p < .05. Additionally, generational status in country was positively correlated with generational status in college, r (155) = .227, p < .01 (i.e. the more generations of a student’s family were born in this country, the more generations had enrolled in college). Therefore, we conducted some additional analyses to further examine the impact of generational status in college. Three generational status in college groups were compared utilizing ANOVAs with Bonferroni post hoc tests: first generation in college, second generation (i.e. students and their parents had enrolled in college), and third generation or more. An ANOVA showed that the generational status in college groups were significantly different in perceived social supports, F(2, 152) = 4.257, p < .05, with first generation students reporting lower levels of support than did third generation students, p < .05 (Figure 3). No significant differences based on generational status in college were found on the other variables, although it was noted that generational status was significantly positively correlated with parental financial support for college, r(154) = .166, p < .05.


Session T1H 5.0 4.5

Mean Likert Scale Value Perceived Social Supports

4.0

3.5 ± 0.09

3.69 ± 0.10

3.90 ± 0.08

3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0

First

Second

Third or Greater

Generational Status in College

FIGURE 3. PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORTS BY GENERATIONAL STATUS IN COLLEGE.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

the Hispanic ethnic group, for example, listed ten familial countries of origin, each potentially corresponding to an associated sub-culture. It is generally felt that using ethnicity categorically is insufficient for describing psychological outcomes, and that a more sophisticated way of dealing with ethnicity is to identify and study contextual variables (cultural and social) associated with ethnicity. Phinney suggests three ethnicity aspects that are important in psychological work that must be investigated to fully treat the complex construct of ethnicity: culture, ethnic identity, and minority status [30]. Data on ethnic identity were collected for this sample and will be presented in the future. One limitation of the current dataset is the fact that the survey did not distinguish between students attending school in the U.S. on a student visa and students who immigrated to this country prior to college enrollment. The results based on generational status born in the U.S. are still potentially important, however, given the fact that the foreign-born population in the United States is at an all-time high of 33.5 million people [31]. In particular, the fastest growing demographic of the country’s population is Hispanics aged 1824 years—a significant portion of our sample—are estimated to account for 61% of our country’s total population growth from the years 2000 to 2015. The study of perceived barriers and supports is important to persistence. Lent and coworkers [11] assert that goals are less likely to be translated into action if a person perceives the presence of adverse environmental conditions. Our nonsignificant results in relation to perceived barriers and ethnicity contradict other SCCT literature [7, 8, 32, 33] that report that minority students perceive increased barriers to educational plans compared to White students. Upon further examination of survey results and analysis of results initial interviews, we believe that the five survey items querying the likelihood of receiving discouragement or feeling pressured to change majors by family and friends, not fitting in socially, and worrying that too much schooling is required to be an engineer may not adequately address potential barriers perceived by this distinctive student population. Therefore, the qualitative portion of this study will further explore the perceived barriers to college and career plans. Barriers more pertinent to this sample population may be related to financial worries, commuting, attempting to balance school with working, and lack of college-educated or engineering role models. Furthermore, this study is unique in that this sample of female engineering undergraduates comes from an extremely ethnically diverse institution, where no one ethnic group constitutes the “majority”. Much of the previous collegiatelevel engineering education research has been conducted either with populations where students of color were in the minority, or at minority-serving institutions, such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) where African American students make up the vast majority of the student body. Lent and colleagues [10] report that engineering students at HBCUs perceive weak barriers, strong supports, and easy access to role models. A similar effect relating to barriers and supports may

Significant differences were found in the generational status in country and college for students from different ethnic groups, as well as students’ perceptions of the field of engineering, and access to engineering role models. No significant ethnic group differences were found, however, for major choice goals, sense of belonging, perceived barriers to college and career plans, or perceived supports for majoring in engineering. Differences did exist in perceived supports based on generational status in country and college, but no significant differences in perceived barriers were found based on generational status in country or college. Readers familiar with previous work applying social cognitive career theory to engineering education will no doubt recognize the important role self-efficacy plays in engineering students’ persistence and achievement. Future iterations of this study will include items on the construct of self-efficacy. However, previous studies [27, 28] found that female engineering students at UH were generally self-efficacious and therefore this survey was used to explore additional interrelated factors that may influence our students’ perceptions and intentions to persist. The fact that no differences in perceived barriers, social supports, and sense of belonging were found based on ethnicity were initially surprising, but can be explained in several ways. First of all, the construct of ethnicity is multidimensional and complex, and use of ethnic categories must be used with caution. We recognize each of these categories is insufficient to encompass the multiple dimensionalities of ethnicity stemming from within-group sub-cultures, and that categorical ethnic groupings are not ideal for describing the rich diversity of our student population. However, these provide a starting point for discussion. Categorizing people into various ethnic groups is problematic for many reasons, and has been criticized as arbitrary, imprecise and inadequate [29, 30]. For example, in our sample, within-group ethnic variations were present in terms of generational status in country. Additionally, other potentially important within-group variations are anticipated to be present; participants included in 4244-1084-3/07/$25.00 ©2007 IEEE October 10 – 13, 2007, Milwaukee, WI 37th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference T1H-11

Session T1H be at work at our university, where no one group is singled out as the “minority”. In analyses of data from three nationally representative longitudinal studies, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that 47% of beginning postsecondary students in 1995-1996 were the first generation in their family to go to college. Research on first generation college students has shown that they perceive less support from families [34], have lower retention rates, and are at particular risk for attrition during the first year of college [35-37] and take longer to graduate. In fact, Ishitani [38] states that these students face “profound challenges at each level of educational system” due to lack of parental experience with the educational process [35, 39], including more difficult transitions to college. First generation college students have also been found to be less engaged in extracurricular activities which may help them form adequate support systems, and are less likely to develop relationships with faculty members [40]. Our results, unique due to our sample of diverse female engineering students, echo previous findings on in the literature on college generational status. Generational status in college will be further explored in the qualitative phase of this work. SUMMARY In summary, this work is an initial report on the first phase of a research project aiming to investigate the relations of ethnicity to female students’ perceptions, attitudes and experiences related to engineering, and how these factors influence female students’ intentions to persist in engineering majors. This work successfully integrates prior research and recommendations from the engineering education and educational psychology fields. Quantitative data from a survey instrument were presented. Results indicated that analyzing results in terms of categorical ethnicity groupings may be insufficient for understanding the complex and interrelated contextual variables associated with ethnic or cultural background, particularly for a diverse sample population where no one ethnic group is singled out as a minority group in the educational setting. Rather, investigating other factors such as generational status in country or college, which in our study were significantly related to ethnicity, may be more appropriate in understanding engineering students’ perceived social supports, barriers, access to role models, major choice goals, and other contextual factors which have been linked to college persistence. Further examination of these factors, particularly the construct of perceived barriers, will be explored through interviews with some of the students from the survey sample in the second phase of this project. ACKNOWLEDGMENT This work is sponsored by the Engineering Information Foundation, Grant# EIF06.01, and the Conducting Rigorous Research in Engineering Education Project (NSF project number DUE-0341127).

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