Year Eight Annual Report: Activities, Findings and Evaluators\u27 Reports

The National Center for Engineering and Technology Education (NCETE) is a collaborative network of scholars with backgrounds in technology education, engineering, and related fields. Our mission is to build capacity in technology education and to improve the understanding of the learning and teaching of high school students and teachers as they apply engineering design processes to technological problems. NCETE was granted a no-cost extension for an eighth year of work. Significant activities were focused in three areas: building research capacity within the engineering and technology education field; building on current research programs; and communicating and disseminating NCETE works and findings

The educational journeys of first-generation college women in STEM: A grounded theory study

The purpose of this study was to ascertain the various factors that influenced these first-generation college women as they chose a college and selected a STEM major and subsequently persisted to upper level (junior/senior) status. Twenty-five first-generation college women in STEM majors who attended a research-intensive university in the Midwest were interviewed. Approaching this study using constructivist grounded theory provided the opportunity for deeper insights by examining data at a conceptual level while preserving the voices of the women in this study. The women faced numerous challenges on their journeys, yet they persisted. As the women in this study selected and persisted in STEM, they demonstrated thoughtful determination, experienced shifting identities, established purposeful relationships and applied forward thinking, as they practiced high-stakes decision-making during their journeys. The experiences of these women, namely first-generation women in STEM fields, may inform students, parents, educators, researchers, and policymakers concerned with (a) inspiring students to consider STEM majors, (b) fostering student success in STEM throughout their academic journeys, and (c) ultimately increasing the number of underrepresented minorities and women in the STEM fields

Beyond the Diploma : A Detailed Exploration of the Gender Wage Gap : An Empirical Analysis of the Gender Wage Gap among Graduates with Completed First-Stage Tertiary Education

A gender wage gap has been thoroughly documented, both in Norway and internationally. Prior studies have substantiated a significant wage discrepancy between genders among those holding an MBA, yet comprehensive research into this disparity across other graduatelevel disciplines remains scarce. The purpose of this thesis is to fill this gap, by examining the wage gap, not only among business graduates, but also among medicine, law, and STEM graduates. To examine the gender wage gap in these four educational groups, we utilize cross-sectional register data from 2019, obtained from Microdata.no. Using recent high-quality data enables us to determine the severity of the graduate-level wage gap, and allows for an exploration of potential disparities between different educational groups. Our analysis reveals a significant wage gap among graduate-level workers with educational backgrounds in medicine, law, STEM, and business fields. In this combined sample of graduate-level workers, we identified a raw wage gap of 15.39% and an adjusted wage gap of 7.98%. In comparison, the unadjusted wage gap in the general working population in Norway stood at 12.4% in 2019. Thus, our results suggest that the wage gap might be larger among those with a graduate-level degree than in the general working population. We also uncover considerable gender wage gaps within the four educational groups. Moreover, our analysis reveals that the wage gap is substantially smaller among part-time workers than full-time workers. Additionally, we found that men enter the labor market with significantly higher wages than women, and that they have a significantly higher return on experience. At last, we found that the gender wage gap, at large, is greater among graduate-level workers than among undergraduate-level workers. In this study, we confirm the existence of a wage gap between men and women at the graduate level in Norway. To successfully close the wage gap, we suggest several measures. First, additional research should be conducted to understand why men experience a higher return on experience. Moreover, we recommend initiatives to encourage more women to pursue full-time positions. The promotion of efforts to support and encourage women into senior roles, where compensation tends to be higher, could also contribute to narrowing the wage gap. Lastly, altering workplace structures and shifting societal expectations might further reduce segregation in the workforce.nhhma

Interaction and Mechanics: Understanding Course-work Engagement in Large Science Lectures

Post-secondary institutions have developed several interventions to address what Chamblis’ (2014) calls the arithmetic of classroom engagement. Large lecture courses limit the potential for student/instructor interaction. Instead, large lecture courses have historically relied on an industrialized model of information delivery. Very little is known about how students develop their strategies for completing their course-work in this context. The aim of this study was to outline a conceptual framework describing how undergraduates become engaged in their course-work in large science lecture courses. Course-work engagement refers to the set of practices that are part of students’ efforts to successfully complete a course. Course-work engagement is goal oriented behavior, shaped by the beliefs that individual holds about their self and the course. In the framework, I propose that students’ initial beliefs states catalyze their behavioral engagement in the course which is conditioned through feedback from working with peers, from performance assessments, and through interactions with the instructor. This study was conducted in a large (n=551) undergraduate introductory physics course. The course was composed of three lecture sections, each taught by a different instructor. Based on a review of the literature, I posed the following research questions: 1. What are the relationships among students’ peer interactions, their digital instructional technology use, and their performance on assessments in a physics lecture course? 2. How does the instructional system shape students’ engagement in peer interactions and their use of digital instructional technologies in a course? In this study, I employed three methods of data collection. First, I observed instruction in all three sections throughout the semester to characterize similarities and differences among the three lecture sections. Second, I administered two surveys to collect information about students’ goals for the course, their expectations for success, their beliefs about the social and academic community in the course, and the names of peers in the course who the student collaborated with in out-of-class study groups. Surveys were administered before the first and final exam in the course. Third, I used learning analytics data from a practice problem website to characterize students’ usage of the tool for study preparation before and after the first exam. Through the stochastic actor based modeling, I identified three salient factors on students’ likelihood of participating in out-of-class study groups. First, being underrepresented in the course may have shaped students’ opportunities to participate in out-of-class study groups. Women and international students both attempted to participate at higher rates than men and domestic students, respectively. However, women and international students were unlikely to have their relationships reciprocated over the semester. Second, when study tools are incorporated into out-of-class study groups, social influence appears to play a significant role in the formation of course-work engagement. For example, students who were non-users of the practice problem website tended to adopt the use behavior of their higher intensity peers. Third, changes in students’ beliefs about the course were significantly related to changes in their course grade. In terms of performance, students who experienced changes to their course beliefs, or what attempted to form new out of class study groups in the lead up to the third exam, were likely to experience academic difficulty. This study highlights the important role of time and the dynamic role of social interaction on the development of course-work engagement in large science lecture courses.PHDHigher EducationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138776/1/mbrowng_1.pd

Narrative Inquiry of Chinese and American Student Teachers’ Professional Identities in Their Teaching Practicums: A Story Constellations Approach

This dissertation narrates two Chinese and two American student teachers’ professional identity constructions during their practicums using the story constellations approach to voice their narrative authority. Informed by Big “D” Discourse theory, knowledge communities, and micropolitical theory, this dissertation showcases the Chinese and American student teachers’ stories to live by—a narrative approach to understanding their professional identity formation nested within the shifting landscapes. These professional knowledge landscapes included their personal schooling experiences, teacher education programs, and the placement schools where their rudimentary teaching practices unfurled. This dissertation situates the participants’ professional identity formation at the point where their practical knowledge, emotionality of teaching, and professional vulnerability meet. These intertwined elements foster the understanding of the internal dynamics of student teachers’ professional identity development. This dissertation found that the Chinese student teachers experienced eagerness and anxiety at the beginning of their teaching practicums, reality shock amid student teaching, and confidence at the end of the teaching practice. Meanwhile, their American counterparts expressed confidence at the beginning of their student teaching, fragility amid their practicum experiences, and satisfaction at the conclusion of student teaching. This dissertation reveals some convergences regarding the student teachers’ professional identity formation: 1) negotiation between personal and professional identities, 2) reflections linking theory and practice, and 3) the shift from curriculum-implementers to curriculum-makers. This dissertation also uncovered five pairs of divergences in terms of professional identity construction. These include: 1) different purposes for entering the teaching profession, 2) different program learning experiences, 3) different professional identity orientations, 4) different styles of mentorships, and 5) different pedagogical approaches. After synthesizing the narrative accounts, implications for strengthening the west-east dialogue on teacher education in both China and the U.S. are discussed

A Case Study of the Perspectives of School Administrators in Ontario on Policies and Practices Addressing Disproportionality in Student Discipline

The purpose of this case study was to understand the perspectives of school administrators in Ontario on policies and practices addressing disproportionality in student discipline and suspension rates for minority students. The problem is that minority students get school suspension at significantly higher rates than non-minority students. The theory guiding this study is the Black identity development theory. There are four research questions with a central research question is, what are school administrators\u27 perspectives on policies and practices addressing disproportionality in student discipline and suspension rates for minority students in Ontario? This single qualitative case study design purposefully sampled 10 school administrators for 7th to 12th grade from the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) in Ontario, Canada, that have successfully reduced suspension rates in the last three years. The data collection methods include semi-structured open-ended interview questions, focus group interviews, and the collection of the administrator\u27s school discipline policy for analysis. The research used cross-case analysis software to transcribe the participants\u27 interviews, sort out the themes, and assess all the relevant terms from interviews. There are four central themes and 15 sub-themes generated from the participants\u27 interviews. The focus group interview revealed the participants\u27 knowledge of policies and practices addressing disproportionality in student discipline and suspension rates for minority students

Innovation Plaza: Improving Teaching and Learning in Engineering Education

Innovation-Plaza at the University of New Mexico represents a significant advance in improvement in instruction, higher rates of student retention and graduation, and greater success for students traditionally underserved by engineering programs. Through the employment of improved teaching methods in a key ECE course; dual-credit courses for high school students; and outreach to public schools, industry, government and international organizations, Innovation-Plaza has already improved the prospects for academic and professional success for some students in the ECE program at UNM. Expansion and dissemination of the innovations piloted in this program can serve an important role in improving the prospects for students traditionally underserved by engineering and other higher education STEM programs, change that is essential if the United States is to remain competitive with other nations in science and technology. Given continued attention to the need to build on, replicate and disseminate successful aspects of the Innovation-Plaza program via improved pedagogy in ECE and other STEM courses; outreach to secondary school students, Hispanics, women, foreign students and other populations currently underserved by engineering and other STEM academic programs; and increased collaboration with educational institutions, governments, and industry, it can be expected that the Innovation-Plaza program will continue to experience growth and success in fulfilling its mission to better serve students in engineering and other STEM fields

The Effects of Collaborative Grouping on Student Engagement in Middle School Students

This action research project investigated the impact of collaborative grouping on students’ engagement in three middle level STEM (science, technology, engineering or math) classrooms. Research was conducted in two rural and one urban setting. Four data collection tools were used: A semantic rating scale (student questionnaire), teacher observations, student interviews, and teacher journaling. Data was categorized into three domains of student engagement: emotional, cognitive, and behavioral. Teamwork strategies were overtly taught to students before the study with additional instruction during the observation process as needed. While quantitative evidence implied a slight decrease in preference for collaborative learning by student’s self-report, qualitative data showed positive results across the implementation. Research findings support the finding that collaborative grouping has a positive impact on student learning and fosters socialemotional skills beneficial for overall functioning in today’s environment. Our findings suggest that middle-level classrooms benefit from incorporating collaborative learning activities when preceded by intentional group formation, instruction on how to participate effectively as a member of a collaborative team, and supplemented by re-teaching of group skills or re-grouping, as indicated by evidence of student engagement

The Challenges and Issues Faced by Saudi Women When they are Appointed to New Unconventional Jobs

Advancing awareness of the workforce and job issues faced by women in the KSA will encourage HRM departments to enhance Saudi women\u27s work experience by implementing more gender-friendly work environments, practices, and processes. Therefore, the researcher decided to implement this research to shed light on the role of Saudi women working in community development, to identify the most important challenges and issues facing Saudi women working in new unconventional jobs, and to discuss methods that can be followed to reduce these challenges and issues. To achieve this, the researcher used a descriptive-analytical approach and qualitative research methods (interviews). The interviews were conducted with 10 Saudi women working in new, non-traditional jobs. The study reached a number of results, most notably that Saudi society still rejects the work of Saudi women and their participation in the labor market. The results also confirmed that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia seeks to provide suitable job opportunities for Saudi women and to integrate them into the labor market. In addition, the results confirmed that the family plays an important role in supporting working Saudi women and helping them achieve career and professional excellence. In light of this, the researcher recommended the necessity of changing Saudi society\u27s view of working Saudi women. The need to make many transformative changes in employment methods and to achieve equal employment opportunities between women and men