For the last two academic years, data has been collected to illustrate the enculturation process to engineering during the first year engineering program at a Southwestern Institution. Enculturation understood as the process of acquiring knowledge, practices and values to the profession is a new perspective, closely related to identity development. During the Academic Years of 2016, 2017, almost two thousand students in the first engineering program were asked about their understanding of engineering and enculturation to engineering via an online survey. The specific questions in the survey were:
1. Why do you want to be an engineer?
2. What is your understanding of being an engineer?
3. Define in your own words Engineering Culture.
In addition, approximately 50 students have participated in focus groups attempting to triangulate results.
Preliminary results show that students' first understanding of engineering as a culture aligns to the way the question is presented (same terms and concepts) but change over time. They look similar to the engineering taxonomies concept of Identities. ‘Identities’ however does not capture the perceptions of students of engineering as a culture (external to them) neither it approaches the engineering college program as the process of assimilation to such culture. This poster shows the results of the process of engineering education theory building for the specific case of enculturation in the first year program.
Dr. Mendoza is a faculty member of Technology Management in the College of Education-Engineering at Texas A&M University. She has worked as electrical engineering professor in Mexico. She recently obtained funds from NSF to investigate enculturation to engineering and computational thinking in engineering students. She is the co-advisor of the Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers at TAMU and is interested in computing engineering education and Latinx engineering entrepreneurship.
Dr. So Yoon Yoon is an assistant professor in the Department of Engineering and Computing Education in the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Cincinnati, OH, USA. Dr. Yoon received her Ph.D. in Gifted Education, and an M.S.Ed. in Research Methods and Measurement with a specialization in Educational Psychology, both from Purdue University, IN, USA. She also holds an M.S. in Astronomy and Astrophysics and a B.S. in Astronomy and Meteorology from Kyungpook National University, South Korea. Her work centers on elementary, secondary, and postsecondary engineering education research as a psychometrician, data analyst, and program evaluator with research interests in spatial ability, STEAM education, workplace climate, and research synthesis with a particular focus on meta-analysis. She has developed, validated, revised, and copyrighted several instruments beneficial for STEM education research and practice. Dr. Yoon has authored more than 80 peer-reviewed journal articles and conference proceedings and served as a journal reviewer in engineering education, STEM education, and educational psychology. She has also served as a PI, co-PI, advisory board member, or external evaluator on several NSF-funded projects.
Dr. Richard got his Ph. D. at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1989 and a B. S. at Boston University, 1984. He was at NASA Glenn, 1989-1995, worked at Argonne National Lab, 1996-1997, taught at Chicago State University, 1997-2002. Dr. Richard is an Inst
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