This STEP Type 2 project is a study that identifies and examines the factors that contribute to differential levels of student participation in student engineering competitions. Generally, engineering faculty and industry representatives have positive views towards Student, Experiential Learning, Engineering Competition Teams (SELECT) that are sponsored by professional engineering societies. These national competitions offer students the opportunity to develop technical engineering skills, teamwork skills, and other non-technical professional skills through designing and building projects and testing their performance. For example, professional organizations sponsor competitions that require students to solve problems associated with building vehicles for challenging terrains or building devices out of specified materials that can perform specific tasks. These competitions are designed to foster innovative thinking, the application of engineering principles, and professional skills through solving open-ended, constrained problems. While the numbers of students participating in these types of competitions have increased over the years, participation by students from traditionally underrepresented groups remains disproportionately low when compared to the demographics of students enrolled in engineering programs. This study identifies and examines the underlying beliefs, assumptions, policies, and practices contributing to cultures of inclusion and/or exclusion in these team competitions. The study is guided by a theoretical framework that suggests that underlying social motivations (e.g., power, ideology, maintenance of the status quo) and mechanisms (e.g., political, economic, language) shape social relationships in institutions. The mixed-qualitative study investigates the following question, What factors contribute to cultures of inclusion or exclusion within Student, Experiential Learning, Engineering Competition Teams? The research team hypothesizes that the most significant factors contributing to team cultures of inclusion or exclusion fall into several general categories: extrinsic influences, group dynamics, and individual attributes, motivators, and agency.
