CAREER: Recognizing Engineering Formation: Learning Experiences as a Catalyst for Transformation (REFLECT) from Student to Professional Engineer

This project is tied to the idea that reflection is fundamental to the educational process but recognizes that our understanding of effective forms of reflection is lacking. This is particularly true in engineering education, where students face a rigorous curriculum that requires more credit hours than any other undergraduate degree, leaving little time and space for students to reflect.

Engineering education literature suggests a community belief that reflection can support engineering students’ learning in ways that contribute to their professional development. However, use of reflective interventions in the academe are disparate and it is evident that reflection is not meeting this potential for most students. This project will advance our understanding of how people become engineers, and through that understanding, lead to the development and implementation of reflection interventions that will support students in their engineering education journey.

The reflection interventions developed as part of the research and design and development strands of the project have potential for immediate benefit to support undergraduate engineers at multiple institutions. These benefits will be realized in both curricular and co-curricular learning experiences. Additionally, results of the research will support institutions in the evaluation of their engineering education programs, leading to insights that support program reform.

This project is motivated to understand: How can reflection support student engineers in the production of a professional engineering identity (PEI)? This project will investigate three questions as part of foundational, exploratory, and design and development research activities: RQ1) How do early career engineers story their understanding of what it means to be an engineer at different points along the student to practitioner trajectory?; RQ2) What are the most predominant factors of early career engineers’ stories that might support a conceptual model of PEI reflection?; and RQ3) How do undergraduate engineers story their understanding of what it means to be an engineer at different points along the student to practitioner trajectory, and how does that differ from early career engineers?

To answer RQ1, narrative inquiry will be used to compile PEI development narratives of 30 early career engineers. Cross- case analysis of those narratives will be used to identify the most salient PEI reflection themes among these practitioners. To answer RQ2, a survey will be developed and implemented to scale findings beyond the small group of early career engineers.

The survey will be deployed nationally with a minimum of 300 early career engineers. The objective is to explore the generalizability of PEI reflection themes toward developing a valid conceptual model of PEI reflection constructs. To answer RQ3, a longitudinal case study research methodology will be used to capture the PEI development narratives of 60 undergraduate engineers through reflection interventions and a repeated survey.

The reflection activities will be analyzed to identify salient PEI reflection themes among students. Key outcomes of this project are expected to include: (1) a conceptual model of narrative constructs that are fundamental to development of a professional engineering identity; (2) construct validation of narrative constructs that might underly a PEI reflection framework; (3) a valid survey instrument that can be used by institutions of higher education as part of program evaluation; (4) biographies of early career engineers that engender the narrative constructs; (5) biographies of student engineers that engender these constructs as longitudinal, in-progress narratives; (6) a research methodology rooted in reflection capable of supporting additional research in engineering and beyond, (7) reflection activity development workshops with faculty from multiple institutions; and (8) reflection interventions and integration plans that will be archived as a publicly accessible resource.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.