Leaders in industry and government are calling for increasing innovation in STEM fields to maintain the nation's economic competitiveness [15]. Solving today's complex challenges will require cooperation among experts from many fields. Successful leaders must harness the diverse capabilities of teams composed of these experts and be technically skilled. Undergraduate engineering students can fill this need by learning how to be effective leaders during their formation as engineers. Unfortunately, many engineering students graduate with little development of leadership skills; engineering educators do not currently have a sufficient understanding of how engineering students develop into leaders.
This NSF ECE supported project seeks to improve educators’ understanding of the interaction between leadership and engineering identities in the formation of undergraduate engineers. This work postulates that a cohesive engineering leadership identity should exist at the intersection of engineering and leadership identities. Now entering its second year the project is wrapping up its quantitative phase and is beginning the qualitative phase of investigation. This paper discusses the process of developing the qualitative research protocols used to explore identity formation in groups of undergraduate engineers at three different campuses. The discussion shows the formation of the protocol using prior work in leadership and engineering identity constructs from both this project and the literature. The protocol development, methods, and findings from early interviews are presented. Initial findings suggest several factors are important to engineering educators interested in developing engineers who are ready to lead. The findings include evidence of some level of conflict between engineering identity and leadership identity as well as further evidence of engineering students’ compartmentalization of leadership as outside of engineering.
In addition, this paper includes the learning outcomes of three REU students who joined the project to assist with the development of the qualitative protocol. The REU students made significant contributions to initial data collection as participants and observers. The REU students were the lead authors of this paper.
Romy Beigel is a senior at Montana State University pursuing a B.S. in Industrial and Management Systems Engineering and a B.A. in Honor's Liberal Studies. Romy is a member of IISE, Alpha Pi Mu, and the Montana State Women in Engineering Advisory Board. Her previous professional experience includes an internship with The Boeing Company and undergraduate research work with the Space Science and Engineering Lab at Montana State.
Emma Annand is striving for a B.S. in Industrial and Management System Engineering at Montana State University – Bozeman. Emma is a research assistant for MSU's NSF supported engineering leadership identity development project. She is also the fundraising team lead for MSU's chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB@MSU). Over the summer of 2018, Emma traveled with EWB@MSU to Khwisero, Kenya to implement a borehole well at a primary school there. During the summer of 2019, Emma will once again travel to Khwisero – this time to assess for a structure at a secondary school.
Monika Kwapisz (they/them) is an undergraduate at Montana State University studying Industrial and Management Systems Engineering with a minor in Mathematics. Monika is the president of MSU's chapter of Out in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (oSTEM), a cross-country ski coach, and an avid outdoors-person.
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8626-1671
Montana State University
[biography]
William J. Schell holds a Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering – Engineering Management from the University of Alabama in Huntsville and M.S. and B.S. degrees in Industrial and Management Engineering from Montana State University (MSU). He is Associate Professor in Industrial and Management Systems Engineering and Associate Director of the Montana Engineering Education Research Center at MSU with research interests in engineering education and the role of leadership and culture in process improvement. His research is supported by the NSF and industry and has received numerous national and international awards. He is an elected Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Management and serves as an Associate Editor for the Engineering Management Journal. Prior to his academic career, Schell spent 14 years in industry where he held leadership positions focused on process improvement and organizational development.
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9414-394X
Montana State University - Bozeman
[biography]
Bryce E. Hughes is an Associate Professor in Adult and Higher Education at Montana State University. His research interests encompass diversity and equity in engineering education, with a focus on LGBTQ students. He was recently awarded an NSF CAREER grant to study the experiences of LGBTQ undergraduates in STEM fields. He holds a Ph.D. in education from the University of California, Los Angeles, an M.A. in student development administration from Seattle University, and a B.S. in general engineering from Gonzaga University.
Brett Tallman is Visiting Lecturer at Texas Christian University. He earned his doctorate in Engineering at Montana State University (MSU), with focus on engineering leadership. His previous degrees include a Masters degree in Education from MSU (active learning in quantum mechanics) and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University. He comes to academia with over two decades of industry experience, including quality engineering with Toyota and managing his own consulting practice in biomedical and product design.
Are you a researcher? Would you like to cite this paper? Visit the ASEE document repository at peer.asee.org for more tools and easy citations.