Measuring underrepresented student perceptions of inclusion within engineering departments and universities

• Autores: Walter C. Lee, Holly M. Matusovich, Philip R. Brown
• Localización: The International journal of engineering education, ISSN-e 0949-149X, Vol. 30, no. Extra 1, 2014, págs. 150-165
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Despite efforts made by the engineering community, the struggle to increase racial and ethnic diversity continues. As women andethnic minorities make up a larger percentage of the United States labor force, academic departments need to support thedevelopment of students from these talent pools. To improve the retention of these students, engineering departments need to beinclusive, allowing students to feel welcomed, valued, respected, and supported. The overall purpose of this study was to developand pilot a survey instrument, grounded in Tinto’s Model of Institutional Departure, to provide engineering educators andadministrators with a tool that can be used to investigate how underrepresented engineering students rate the level of inclusionwithin engineering departments, paying close attention to gender and race/ethnicity. Herein we specifically report on the instrumentdevelopment and the initial findings through data collected from two public, predominately White research institutions with highundergraduate engineering student enrollment. Our results demonstrate that the Engineering Department Inclusion Level (EDIL)survey can yield valid and reliable scores with the population of interest. Before embarking on further data collection to continuedeveloping the survey, we wanted to determine what value the survey might have. Results indicate no differences between men andwomen from underrepresented populations but that African-Americans rated the same environments less inclusive than otherracial/ethnic groups across all of the scales. Finally, PhD students scored University Pride lower than participants at otheracademic levels. Moreover, based on initial data results, we suggest further research on feelings of inclusion as an important aspectto creating a diverse environment.