Intellectual Merit: The University of Missouri Columbia proposes to better understand the underrepresentation of women and Latino/as in engineering, by identifying psychological variables that contribute to their persistence and satisfaction in engineering programs and entry-level engineering careers. The research is grounded in Social Cognitive Career Theory, which explains the interaction among personal, environmental, and behavioral variables in the development of career interests, choices, and persistence. Using a sample of engineering students at New Mexico State University (NMSU), a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), the PIs hypothesize that the SCCT model will explain significant variance in students? academic satisfaction and persistence in engineering. In addition, the researchers will test for group invariance of the SCCT model to assess the generalizability in the model based on gender and race/ethnicity. Structural equation modeling (SEM) will be used to examine the hypothesized SCCT model (both cross-sectionally and longitudinally), and a series of multi-group analyses using SEM will be used to test for group invariance. Finally, the PIs will conduct interviews with Latino/a non-persisters in engineering to examine the salient factors in their decision to leave engineering. The proposed study is a collaboration between the University of Missouri (MU) and NMSU.
Broader Impacts: Findings from this study will contribute knowledge regarding the cultural validity of SCCT, a theory used to inform educational and career interventions across a variety of majors and professional fields. The findings may lead to theoretical refinements of SCCT with Latino/as as well as new theory development in explaining educational persistence and job satisfaction of Latino/as and White women in engineering. The findings from this project will be disseminated broadly so that educators and practitioners can design and develop effective programs that will enhance social cognitions related to the selection of, persistence in, and satisfaction in engineering among White women and Latino/as. The results will offer information regarding the generalizability of the SCCT model across gender and racial/ethnic groups by illustrating how the relations within this model are distinct or similar across Latinas, White women, Latinos, and White men. Interventions and activities may be tailored for each group to bolster the social cognitions that are the strongest predictors for each group. The findings may also be used to provide supports that can be implemented during strategic points in these students? educational training when they may be at higher risk for dropping out of engineering. Early identification of students at risk of dropping out enables the development of retention strategies to minimize attrition in engineering. Finally, the project will provide training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students, including women students and students of color, in developing expertise in theoretically-driven research and in understanding the career development of women and Latino/as in engineering.
This 3-year longitudinal mixed-method research project investigated factors that influenced satisfaction and intended persistence in engineering for a sample of undergraduate engineering majors attending a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). The project was grounded in Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT; Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994; 2000), which explains the interaction among personal, environmental, and behavioral variables in the development of career interests, choices, and persistence. The project findings point to the utility of the SCCT model in predicting satisfaction and intended persistence for White men, White women, Latinos, and Latinas. Specifically, the quantitative survey project findings from Year 1 suggested that engineering academic satisfaction was positively associated to engineering self-efficacy, interests, and goals. This suggests that engineering students who believe that they can perform well in their engineering activities, report high interests in engineering activities, and have high intentions to persist as engineering majors also report high levels of satisfaction in engineering programs. These findings were similar for men and women as well as Latino/a and White students. Using both Year 1 and Year 2 data, longitudinal analyses found that there was a reciprocal relation among academic satisfaction and intended persistence across time. That is, students’ resolve to persist in their engineering degrees bolstered their satisfaction with their major, which in turn, boosts students’ persistence in engineering. Again, there were no gender or ethnic differences in the reciprocal relation among academic satisfaction and intended persistence. The longitudinal analyses also called into question some SCCT-based hypotheses as there was a lack of significant relations among several variables in the model. For example, engineering self-efficacy did not predict engineering outcome expectations over time, and engineering outcome expectations did not predict engineering interests over time. Taken together, the aforementioned project findings suggest that SCCT is generalizable across gender and ethnicity for this sample of undergraduate engineering majors. The findings also point to possible theoretical refinements that need further testing, particularly the inclusion of a reciprocal relation among academic satisfaction and intended persistence. Despite the lack of gender and ethnic differences when testing more robust SCCT models, it is important to note that gender and ethnic differences did emerge when examining the links among sources of learning experiences, self-efficacy, and outcome expectations which are all considered core constructs in SCCT. For example, male undergraduate engineering majors reported that they received more verbal encouragement for their engineering pursuits and had more confidence in their engineering-related abilities than their female peers. On the other hand, female undergraduate engineering majors expected to receive more benefits to pursuing engineering than their male peers. Furthermore, whereas past performance accomplishments in engineering were related across time for both genders, this relation was stronger for women. This may be related to the historical inequity in access to engineering-related learning experiences and suggests that for women, successful performance in engineering-related tasks results in a greater involvement in such tasks in the future at a greater rate than their male peers. In relation to ethnic differences, the relation of verbal encouragement across time was significant for both Latino/as and Whites, but it was stronger for Whites than Latino/as. This same pattern appeared with the relations of both past performance accomplishments and self-confidence in engineering-related abilities over time. The former findings may be related to the differential verbal encouragement for and access to the pursuit of engineering-related majors and careers by ethnicity. Along with the quantitative survey, this project included individual interviews with Latino/as who either persisted or did not persist in their pursuit of an engineering degree. Via these interviews, participants provided important information about factors influencing their initial choice to pursue an engineering major and either their decision to persist or leave engineering. The initial choice to major in engineering appeared to be influenced by the promise of financial job security after graduation and an interest in the sciences along with the support and encouragement from family and academic role models. Those who continued to persist in engineering also cited feeling supported, encouraged, included, and valued by their faculty and department as a primary factor in their academic successes. Latino/a persisters discussed the importance of using academic coping mechanisms to meet the intellectual and time demands of pursuing an engineering degree. They also explained that they persisted in engineering due to personal passions to use engineering to better their communities and society in general. Latino/a undergraduate students who did not persist in engineering discussed the personal incongruences with the competitive nature of engineering and the lack of encouragement from faculty members and/or advisors as reasons for leaving engineering. The competitive environment and lack of encouragement in engineering departments appear to diminish these students’ confidence in their abilities to complete an engineering major, ultimately resulting in their exit from the field.
