TY - JOUR
T1 - Revising the dissertation institute
T2 - 126th ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition: Charged Up for the Next 125 Years, ASEE 2019
AU - Cruz, Juan M.
AU - Artiles, Mayra S.
AU - Matusovich, Holly M.
AU - Lee-Thomas, Gwen
AU - Adams, Stephanie G.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by the National Science Foundation under Award No. 1542696. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
Funding Information:
Dr. Stephanie G. Adams is the Dean of Engineering and Technology at Old Dominion University. She was previously department head and professor of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech; Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies in the School of Engineering at Virginia Commonwealth University; and a faculty member and administrator at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). Her research interests include: Teamwork, International Collaborations, Faculty Development, Quality Control/Management and Broadening Participation. She is an honor graduate of North Carolina A&T State University, where she earned her BS in Mechanical Engineering, in 1988. In 1991 she was awarded the Master of Engineering degree in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia. She received her Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Engineering from Texas A&M University in 1998. She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious, Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award. She is a Fellow of the American Society of Engineering Education, holds membership in a number of organizations and presently serves on the National Advisory Board of the National Society of Black Engineers.
Publisher Copyright:
© American Society for Engineering Education, 2019.
PY - 2019/6/15
Y1 - 2019/6/15
N2 - Data show that underrepresented minority (URM) engineering students have lower rates of completion and higher rates of attrition in their doctoral studies than their majority peers. To address attrition and support students, we have developed a research-based intervention that we call the Dissertation Institute (DI). As part of a five-year NSF-funded project, we have developed and refined the DI as a one-week intensive writing and workshop experience for URM in the final phases of their engineering doctoral degrees. We have hosted two DIs to date (2017 and 2018) and we are preparing for our third DI in 2019. The goal of the DI is to offer practical and timely experiences for URM doctoral students to contribute to their degree success. At the same time, we have been researching the motivational factors that promote or detract from degree progress. This analysis looks across the data we have collected and analyzed to date to describe how the DI has evolved over time and in research-informed ways. This approach is in alignment with the final project research question: What are the critical contextual differences between the annual DIs that are important to consider with regard to transferability of DI for future sustainability? We believe that other institutions, programs, and advisors can use our findings in developing local workshops as our research broadly indicates that the first two offerings of the DI have positively impacted students' motivation to finish their dissertation. In critically examining the DI itself and documenting the changes over time, we find that: 1) lack of writing is a symptom of other challenges in pursuing the doctoral degree, and 2) a balance of writing time and professional development is needed to support students. Although heavily grounded in research data (e.g., comparative analysis of quantitative and qualitative data gathered in each of the prior Dis), herein we describe the evolving design of the DI and lessons learned to date.
AB - Data show that underrepresented minority (URM) engineering students have lower rates of completion and higher rates of attrition in their doctoral studies than their majority peers. To address attrition and support students, we have developed a research-based intervention that we call the Dissertation Institute (DI). As part of a five-year NSF-funded project, we have developed and refined the DI as a one-week intensive writing and workshop experience for URM in the final phases of their engineering doctoral degrees. We have hosted two DIs to date (2017 and 2018) and we are preparing for our third DI in 2019. The goal of the DI is to offer practical and timely experiences for URM doctoral students to contribute to their degree success. At the same time, we have been researching the motivational factors that promote or detract from degree progress. This analysis looks across the data we have collected and analyzed to date to describe how the DI has evolved over time and in research-informed ways. This approach is in alignment with the final project research question: What are the critical contextual differences between the annual DIs that are important to consider with regard to transferability of DI for future sustainability? We believe that other institutions, programs, and advisors can use our findings in developing local workshops as our research broadly indicates that the first two offerings of the DI have positively impacted students' motivation to finish their dissertation. In critically examining the DI itself and documenting the changes over time, we find that: 1) lack of writing is a symptom of other challenges in pursuing the doctoral degree, and 2) a balance of writing time and professional development is needed to support students. Although heavily grounded in research data (e.g., comparative analysis of quantitative and qualitative data gathered in each of the prior Dis), herein we describe the evolving design of the DI and lessons learned to date.
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M3 - Conference article
AN - SCOPUS:85078741138
JO - ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings
JF - ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings
SN - 2153-5965
Y2 - 15 June 2019 through 19 June 2019
ER -