2014 - Culture of Disengagement in Engineering Education?

Attribution: Cech, Erin A.
Researchers: Erin A. Cech
University Affiliation: Rice University
Email: ecech@rice.edu
Research Question:
This article examines (a) how students' public welfare beliefs change during their engineering education, (b) whether engineering programs emphasize engagement, and (c) whether these program emphases are related to students' public welfare beliefs.
Published: Yes
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: & Human Values
Journal Entry: Vol. 39, No. 1, Pp. 42-72
Year: 2014
Findings:

– The cultural emphases of students’ engineering programs are directly related to their public welfare commitments and students’ public welfare concerns decline significantly over the course of their engineering education.
– The analysis suggests that engagement with public welfare concerns is not highly valued in students’ professional identities as engineers and that this engagement declines over the course of their engineering education. Among respondents who enter engineering jobs, interest in public welfare concerns does not return after they leave college.
– Cultural emphases (ethical and social issues, policy implications of engineering, general education, and writing skills) are perceived as less central to respondents’ engineering programs than ‘‘technical”
factors such as basic math and science skills or advancing scientific knowledge. It appears, in other words, that a culture of disengagement is in place at these schools and that this culture is related to students’ weak commitment to public welfare considerations.
– Surprisingly, even though the four schools represented in this sample have very different histories and missions, there is little variation in the public welfare beliefs of their students. Schools do vary by how strongly they emphasize engagement-related factors though. Yet, this variation in cultural emphasis does not readily translate into increases in students’ public welfare commitments.
– The consistency in the outcomes of the two pedagogically innovative schools with the more traditional programs also suggests a process of institutional isomorphism whereby even programs that
explicitly attempt to create a structure and culture that diverges from historical norms have difficulty doing so because of the need to be recognized as legitimate purveyors of knowledge (e.g., through accreditation).
– These findings also suggest that if engineering programs can dismantle the ideological pillars of disengagement in their local climates, they may foster more engaged engineers.

* Engineering major shapes attitudes towards social policy.

Scholarship Types: Journal Article Reporting Empirical ResearchKeywords: AttitudesCultureEngineeringInequalityPolicySocializationRegions: NEMethodologies: QuantitativeResearch Designs: SurveyAnalysis Methods: Descriptive StatisitcsFixed Effects Regression Models Sampling Frame:Engineering Students
Sampling Types: Non-Random - PurposiveAnalysis Units: SchoolStudentData Types: Quantitative-Longitudinal
Data Description:

The sample consists of 326 students who entered engineering programs as freshmen in 2003 at one of four US universities: MIT, UMass Amherst, Olin, and Smith. Students were surveyed in the spring of each year then one final time eighteen months post graduation. All students from the 2003 incoming cohort were invited to participate, but this article examines only those in engineering majors.

The author examines four public welfare beliefs among students. She compares respondents’ public welfare beliefs when they are freshman (time 1) to their responses when they are near the
end of their undergraduate career (time 2). For all but the social consciousness measures, which were not asked in the post graduation survey, she also examine these public welfare beliefs among a subsample who are employed as engineers eighteen months after graduation (time 3). The author focused on four specific engagement-relevant cultural emphases: ethical and social issues, policy implications of engineering work, general education in the humanities and the social sciences, and writing skills.

DV: The first three public welfare beliefs are derived from questions that ask respondents, ‘‘what, in [their] opinion, makes a successful career.’’ In response, students were asked to rate the
importance of ‘‘professional and ethical responsibilities,’’ ‘‘understanding the consequences of technology,’’ and ‘‘understanding how people use machines’’. The fourth public welfare belief is a social consciousness scale measure composed of four questions: ‘‘personal importance to me of:’’ ‘‘improving society,’’ ‘‘being active in my community,’’ ‘‘promoting racial understanding,’’ and ‘‘helping
others in need’’

For the cultural emphases measures, the asked the how important students think the following factors are to their engineering programs: ‘‘ethical and/or social issues,’’ ‘‘policy implications of engineering,’’
‘‘broad education in humanities and social sciences,’’ and ‘‘writing skills’’. For the purpose of
comparison, the author also consider cultural emphases on several ‘‘technical’’ factors: ‘‘basic research,’’ ‘‘background in math and science,’’ ‘‘innovation,’’ ‘‘advancement of scientific knowledge,’’ and ‘‘invention’’

The models include measures for gender, school (dichotomous indicators for Olin, Smith, and UMass; MIT is the comparison category), race/ethnicity, and family income.

Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:Institutional effects on Individual attitudes.
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