This research full paper explores how Asian cultural tenets and engineering culture may affect Asian engineering student mental health conditions and help-seeking attitudes in the U.S. context. This exploratory qualitative study framed under social identity theory and intersectionality used one-on-one interviews with eleven Asian-identifying students to explore their experience with mental health conditions, the strategies for support they would seek, and the different types of stigma that most commonly affect their help-seeking attitudes. Students reported on experiencing depression, stress, and anxiety, which were often intertwined with their experiences of the high demands of an engineering degree, which provides additional evidence for the problematic aspects of engineering culture and contributes to the eradication of the model minority stereotype. Friends and family were often cited as the hypothesized first barrier of support for most participants in the study, highlighting the relevance of opportunities to create strong networks of support and destigmatization of MHCs. Social interactions, along with acculturation to Western society, are also shown to be a deciding factor in positive help-seeking attitudes among international Asian students. Finally, cultural, familial, and self-stigma were identified in students' attitudes towards help-seeking, which demonstrates that there is still a lot of work to do across culturally relevant destigmatization of MHC.

This work in progress paper aims to present a first effort in measuring elements of engineering culture that can interact with student well-being. Engineering culture has been under significant scrutiny during the last couple of decades, especially as it has been extensively documented to be exclusionary for marginalized groups. Significant and valuable efforts exist characterizing engineering culture qualitatively, however, less of such efforts have been oriented toward generating a quantitative approach to gauge it. Therefore, studies that aim to measure engineering culture often use established measures for diversity and inclusion as the closest proxies. Derived from our own need to have a quantitative way of measuring engineering culture within a larger longitudinal and multi-institutional project, we embarked on an attempt to do so through two components that have been documented as being part of the engineering ways of thinking and doing, the perceptions of meritocratic beliefs and competitive attitudes. In this paper, we present five items that we have used to measure engineering culture as they relate to competition and meritocracy beliefs. Our research goal was to use Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to investigate the factorial structure of the proposed items. We report on the results from the EFA and CFA for these items using a dataset with responses from more than one thousand students participating in a multi-institutional online survey. Preliminary results show a limited performance of the items in a two-factor structure. We report on a variety of performance measures including congruence measures. While the factor structure does not result reliable, the consistency of results across datasets provides a good step forward on this space of research. Due to the longitudinal nature of the larger project, we plan to iterate on this instrument, including additional aspects of engineering culture. We envision offering a starting point for the challenge of quantitatively gauging elements of engineering culture that have been documented to be problematic to the advancement of the field. Keywords-engineering culture, meritocracy, competition.

In this innovative practice work-in-progress paper, enrollment data from five institutions was used to examine equity in undergraduate research through Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) Programs. VIP is a model for undergraduate research in which large student teams are embedded in faculty-driven projects. The American Association of Colleges and Universities recognizes undergraduate research as a high-impact experience, associated with higher graduation rates and greater learning gains in college. Participation in multiple high-impact experiences yields cumulative gains to students from all backgrounds, and compensatory gains for minoritized and marginalized students. Nationally however, minoritized students, first-generation college students, and transfer students participate in undergraduate research at lower rates than their peers. In this study, VIP enrollments at five institutions (N = 6,651 over two semesters) were compared to demographics of the institutions to determine the degree to which programs achieved equity among historically underserved minorities, transfer students, first-generation college students, and by gender. Analysis accounted for demographics and level of participation of the academic units involved, comparing enrollments with what would be expected under equitable enrollment. Analyses were done for each institution and across the pooled sample. By institution, equity across categories varied. Across the pooled sample, results show small effects sizes for status as a historically underserved minority, very small effect sizes for first-generation students and transfer students, and slightly higher participation among women than men. The large-scale nature of VIP teams enables institutions to scale-up their undergraduate research offerings. This paper begins answering the question of whether this scaling increases access for marginalized populations, and the results are encouraging. The paper is a work-in-progress, because data needs to be collected from more VIP institutions for a wider-ranging study. The chisquare test and the importance of using effect sizes in interpreting results will be explained, so others can apply the same method. Results, implications, and next steps are discussed.

The Level-up workshop will challenge exclusive and exclusionary models for undergraduate research experiences, and it will give participants tools to expand undergraduate research to serve all students. The model and associated tools are adaptable, and they have been implemented in 44 colleges and universities of varying sizes, settings and missions in 12 countries.

This Innovative Practice, Work in Progress paper examines first-year student perceptions and learning outcomes in an experiential learning program. The Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) model affords students an opportunity to earn academic credit by working on teams while contributing to faculty-led research and design projects. The real-world context of the VIP projects facilitates student engagement in projects that address Grand Challenges. As part of the innovative model of our VIP Program at Purdue University, we have incorporated student self-reflection of their progress on each of the seven ABET outcomes as part of the student assessment. The VIP model was recently expanded as a pathway for first-year students at our institution, which requires all engineering students to complete a first-year program. This work addresses the ways in which first-year students participating in VIP address Grand Challenges and explores the ways in which these students meet ABET outcomes using the following research questions: 1) How are first-year VIP students reflecting on ABET outcomes? 2) How does participation in VIP affect first-year students’ interest, self-efficacy, and sense of belonging in engineering? The study uses a mixed methods approach, triangulating qualitative and quantitative student evaluation data from Fall 2020 – Fall 2021. Survey results indicate that VIP participation has a positive effect on student perception of engineering, and, although they may not address all ABET outcomes as first-year students, students effectively connected their project work with specific outcomes. By understanding how VIP and, more generally, experiential learning affects first-year students’ perceptions and connection to ABET outcomes, educators can adopt this model and strengthen student experiences from the beginning.

Mental health has only recently come to the forefront of conversations in the media and academia. Mental health conditions are often triggered by environmental factors like academic stress, interpersonal conflicts, financial pressure, and career concerns. Students living with mental illness may drop out of college due to experiencing a mental health crisis at school. At the same time, engineering is a demanding profession that requires rigorous training. Therefore, the educational and professional experiences of engineers can be overexerting. This challenge can be even higher for engineering students and professionals who struggle with a diagnosed mental illness. Furthermore, the heightened stigma that surrounds mental illness might deter this group from seeking help and persisting in engineering. However, little is known about the experiences of people with a diagnosed mental illness while navigating the training and culture of engineering. Acknowledging and understanding the challenges faced by engineering students and professionals living with a mental illness is the first step towards implementing change in engineering education that would provide adequate support for these students to reach their goals. This work-in-progress reports on the first stage of a larger exploratory study aiming to describe the experiences of engineering students and professionals living with a mental illness and to understand how the engineering culture has impacted their experiences. Results will inform future research on student persistence and will inform engineering programs that want to support students who live with mental illness. Ultimately, this work will help eliminate stigma in engineering education and support the success of those living with mental health conditions.

This workshop introduces data and tools for investigating undergraduate persistence metrics using R. Student record data are from MIDFIELD, a database of registrars' data from US institutions. The stratified data sample includes demographic, term, course, and degree information for 98,000 students from 1987 to 2016. The midfieldr package provides functions for determining persistence metrics such as graduation rates or program stickiness and for grouping findings by institution, program, sex, and race/ethnicity. The goal of the workshop is to share our data, methods, and metrics for intersectional research in student persistence. The workshop is designed for R beginners.

Cooperative education programs alternate education and practice, resulting in increased grade point averages, greater confidence in choice of career, and relatively higher post-graduation salaries. This study examines perceived benefits and barriers for students who choose not to participate in co-ops. Since students who participate in co-ops are more likely to persist in STEM fields, and there are differences in participation rates by race/ethnicity (i.e. Black and Hispanic students participate at lower rates), it is critical to understand the reasons for non-participation. Co-op and non-co-op students from a large Midwestern U.S. research university were surveyed and the responses are disaggregated by gender and race/ethnicity. Choice Theory provides a theoretical framework to model perceived benefits and costs of co-op participation. Decision tree modeling is used to describe the different pathways to co-op participation and examine relationships between student backgrounds and pathways. Constant comparative analysis is used to study open-response questions. Future work will include follow up interviews with students from this survey to gain a more nuanced understanding. Findings have implications for the diversification for the engineering labor force.

Cooperative education programs (co-op), also referred to as Work-Integrated Learning (WIL), provide students with relevant professional experiences in industry. This industry-focused environment presents an opportunity for students to clarify academic and career objectives prior to finishing their studies. This first stage of a four-phase research project explores undergraduate engineering students' interest and decision-making process related to participation in cooperative education at a large mid-western U.S. university. Students who showed initial interest in co-op by attending an information session in 2013-2014, but did not participate in a co-op experience are interviewed. This paper provides an overview of the methods used to accomplish this objective, as well as discusses the future directions and implications of the work. Social Cognitive theory provides a framework for students' reasons for non-participation in the context of factors, such as campus environment, pre-collegiate work experiences, academic course selections, peer interactions, and career intentions. Through the use of phenomenological inquiry, information obtained directly from the students who have expressed interest, but chosen not to pursue co-op provides information to co-op administrators and stakeholders to consider how the program and its recruiting processes may be strengthened.

Cooperative education (co-op) programs in engineering provide students with relevant professional experience before they finish their undergraduate degree. Most programs and employers have academic eligibility requirements that make it difficult to infer whether successful employment outcomes are due to the selection of higher performing students or the causal effect of co-op participation. The goal of this study is to determine factors that are associated with participation in engineering cooperative education programs, controlling for eligibility. Longitudinal and multivariate data from six different institutions, each with large engineering programs where co-op participation is not mandatory, were studied with stepwise logistic regression. Results show that cumulative GPA at the end of the second semester is the strongest predictor of co-op participation. While institutional differences, year of matriculation, ethnicity, major discipline, and high school variables are also significant, gender is not related to co-op participation. The results from this paper will provide useful information for colleges, co-op administrators, and employers about who participates in co-op programs.