Giving an example of making claims and supporting them with evidence (part 2)

I am belated in sharing my CAREER proposal rationale with you, as Robin has already done. Here it is.

1.1 Project rationale
In recent decades, hundreds of educational interventions, thousands of research programs, and millions of dollars of federal funding, have addressed the underrepresentation of white women and people of color at all career levels and across all disciplines of engineering [e.g., 1]. Researchers seeking to understand white women and people of color’s underrepresentation have explored gender and race differences in psychological constructs, cognitive skills, affective measures, and social behaviors considered relevant to students’ engineering educational success. They have striven to understand the impact of implicit bias, chilly climate, and micro-inequities on white women’s and people of color's continued low rates of entry into and comparatively high rates of exit from the engineering educational and professional “pipeline” compared to their white male colleagues. Their studies have spanned the space of gender, race, and engineering by exploring underrepresented people's relationships as young students with peers, teachers and parents, as young ethnically diverse women and men with media, role models, and career visions, as undergraduate and graduate students with teams, mentors, and technical material, and as professionals with colleagues, peer-reviewers, and institutional leaders.

While these studies have helped the engineering education enterprise make modest improvements in the numbers of white women and people of color in engineering undergraduate programs, these improvements seem to have plateaued [2]. The numbers of white women and people of color in engineering have not increased proportionately to the effort expended by the community. This proposal argues that an explanation for this persistent state can be found in methodological and theoretical limitations of these studies, which, to a large extent:

• rely on statistical methods to claim generalizability, even though the numbers of white women and people of color in the study populations are usually too small to justify powerful significance claims. The number of people of color specifically is usually so small that researchers lump all ethnicities of color together to contrast with white populations, or say that no claims can be made about race altogether;
• provide solutions that continue to rely on moulding individuals to better fit into existing institutional structures, despite collective calls to “fix the system, not the student;”
• focus on primarily white institutions (PWIs) and neglect those institutions which successfully educate relatively large numbers of white women and people of color in engineering: women’s colleges and minority serving institutions (MSIs).

This proposed study addresses these limitations by importing powerful theoretical and methodological tools designed to understand gender and race in institutional context. Rather than use methods for studying large numbers of people where we do not have large numbers, it uses methods that allow researchers to “learn from small numbers.” Rather than completing group-level analyses to tell individuals how to better fit into existing institutions, it examines a small number of individual narratives in great depth to examine institutional structure as the unit of analysis. Rather than primarily studying engineering educational institutions that are relatively not successful at educating white women and people of color, it focuses on institutions that are successful, such as women’s colleges and MSIs.

In this project, I will use personal narratives of people considered marginalized in engineering education undergraduate programs in the US to map out the gendered and raced structure of the broader institution of engineering education. This project will achieve two intertwined goals pivotal to advancing the participation of underrepresented groups in engineering:

Research Goal: To identify institutional-level characteristics present in post-secondary engineering educational structures that strongly support or challenge the academic success of underrepresented undergraduate students. To accomplish this goal, I will collect and analyze personal narratives contributed by underrepresented students situated at institutions that have histories of successfully recruiting, retaining, and graduating white women and students of color.

Educational Goal: To design, develop and evaluate a workshop with engineering education leaders that prompts them to imagine what an engineering education institution would look like if it were intentionally designed around the lives of diverse students. This educational goal will put the results of the research into practice by targeting those most able to influence engineering undergraduate institutions, including deans, department chairs, and senior faculty. This workshop will enable leaders to develop innovative approaches to addressing the persisting problem of undergraduate engineering student body homogeneity.

To meet these goals, the proposed study addresses two research questions:

RQ1. How do underrepresented undergraduate engineering students describe their interactions with educational institutions through personal narratives?

RQ2. What institutional factors do these narratives reveal that affect the educational persistence and success of white women and students of color in undergraduate engineering educational institutions?

My guiding hypothesis is that personal narratives can tell us things about gender and race that graphs cannot; as a result, collecting and using compelling, rich personal narratives that demonstrate the complexity of underrepresented students' lives from a small number of participants will be more effective in prompting engineering education leaders to think of new ways to address institutional issues that affect underrepresented students' academic success.

This research is innovative because it proposes a radical new theoretical and methodological direction for engineering education research about underrepresentation: using personal narratives as a way to understand the “ruling relations” of the engineering education institution. The outcomes will (a) inform the theoretical and methodological foundations of future recruitment and retention research and programming, and (b) share tested tools to prompt engineering education leadership to think innovatively about their institutional responses to underrepresentation.

These project goals substantially advance my larger career goal: to do innovative, strongly grounded research that helps build engineering education institutions around the lives of diverse students.

I am ideally suited to undertake this project because of my unique expertise in both engineering education research and intersectional theory, my knowledge of social theories of gender and race and STEM academic institutions via women’s studies and sociology, and my experience in conducting innovative engineering education research on gender and race. I have a strong track record of using interviewing, institutional ethnography, action research methods, and oral histories to understand engineering academic institutions. My current research program studies STEM tenure-track faculty members’ work through their experience of policies, in order to develop academic STEM institutions that are more inclusive of the lives and work of faculty women, particularly women of color [3, 4]. This project extends that work and furthers my career goal by examining the experiences of undergraduate students.

References cited

1. Research on Gender in Science and Engineering Program NSF-GSE. New Formulas for America's Workforce. 2010 [accessed 7/19/10]; Available from: http://www.nsf.gov/ehr/hrd/Newformulas /newformulas.jsp
2. National Science Foundation Division of Science Resources Statistics, Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering: 2009. 2009, National Science Foundation: Arlington, VA.
3. Banerjee, D. and A.L. Pawley. Institutional Ethnography: A research method to investigate the work-life experiences of women faculty members in STEM disciplines. Conference proceedings, American Society for Engineering Education National Conference and Exposition. 2010. Louisville, KY.
4. Hoegh, J. and A.L. Pawley. Modeling the career pathways of women STEM faculty through oral histories and participatory research methods. Conference proceedings for the American Society for Engineering Education National Conference and Exposition. 2010. Louisville, KY.

Giving an example of making claims and supporting them with evidence

Hi all,

Below is an example from my CAREER grant - when you only have 15 pages it helps to be explicit about your claims and evidence. This is the motivation section for why I wanted to study what I wanted to study :)

Engineering is inherently cross-disciplinary. The core of the engineering profession lies in integrating broad knowledge to some purpose (Bordogna 1993). Like all market-oriented research, the production of engineering knowledge draws upon disciplinary and non-disciplinary sources (Gibbons, 1994). In addition, the nature of engineering work involves thinking and working across technical and non-technical considerations (e.g., social, economic, cultures), and requires integration and management of trade-offs where solutions are judged by interdisciplinary criteria (Jonassen et al, 2006). Reports on the future of engineering education emphasize the importance of preparing engineers to become “emerging professionals” who can deal with complexity, innovate, flexibly adapt to new situations, and bridge disciplinary boundaries to produce deeper insights (Bordogna 1993; Bransford 2007; NAE 2004; Clough 2005).

Cross-disciplinary education may help diversify the engineering profession. Thinking and working across perspectives has been identified as an important research area for enhancing diversity and inclusiveness in engineering education (STEERC 2006). Cross-disciplinary education may represent an education for citizenship philosophy by enabling a tolerance for ambiguity and sensitivity towards ethical issues, political or religious bias, and power relations Newell (1994). Downey and Lucena (2006) emphasize how formulating problems across multiple perspectives has the promise of bringing issues of diversity to the core of engineering. Providing more ways to successful cross-cultural interactions honors cultural funds of knowledge and repertoires of practice (Guttierez & Rogoff 2003). Cross-disciplinary education has the potential to broaden perceptions of engineering which may impact the development of an engineering identity (EWEC 2005; Hutchinson et al. 2006; Kilgore, Chachra, et al. 2007; Loshbaugh & Claar 2007; Stevens, O’Connor et al. 2005).

Facilitating cross-disciplinary practice is a national agenda. This is evident in calls for catalyzing interdisciplinary research (CFIR, 2005), stimulating interdisciplinary approaches in engineering education (NAE 2004; Clough 2005), and encouraging innovations that help learners bridge the gap between research and application (Task Force on the Future of American Innovation 2005). Driving forces for these efforts include: the inherent complexity of nature and society, the desire to explore questions that span disciplines, the need to address societal problems, the power of new technologies, and a concern over the nation’s capacity for innovation and ability to sustain a competitive edge (CFIR, 2005; Council on Competitiveness 2005). Considerable pressure has been placed on educational institutions to demonstrate capacity in generating knowledge that can address societal problems, contributing to economic competitiveness (Horlick-Jones, 2004), and preparing professionals who can bridge the gap between research and application (Task Force on The Future of American Innovation 2005; Lawrence, 2004).

There have been substantial investments in cross-disciplinary education. These span settings (local, national, international), learning environments (formal and informal; centers, academic programs, innovation laboratories), and populations (K-12, undergraduate, graduate, practitioners). The scope and scale of cross-disciplinary research and education at Purdue University provides a case in point. For example, there are eight university wide cross-disciplinary research centers, eight cross-disciplinary programs within the College of Engineering, a Multidisciplinary Engineering bachelor’s option, a large scale multidisciplinary service learning program for undergraduates, opportunities for cross-disciplinary undergraduate research and studying abroad, and a partnership with Indiana schools to bring interdisciplinary education into K-12. A sampling of other schools reveals that Purdue is not an exception. More broadly, Klein (1996) notes that cross-disciplinary studies are present in first-year seminars, required core courses, advanced courses, and senior “capstone” seminars and projects. The National Science Foundation has made considerable investments in cross-disciplinary graduate education (e.g., IGERT program) and engineering research centers. Companies such as Proctor Gamble and Intel bring new engineering hires into “rotater” positions to enable innovation and collaboration through awareness of multiple perspectives (Johannson, 2006). There are even cross-disciplinary crucibles (e.g., Crucible at University of Cambridge), “think tanks” (Aligicia, 2004), and consulting services (e.g., the Hybrid Vigor Institute).

There is surprisingly little empirical research on the nature and development of cross-disciplinary ways of thinking, acting, and being in engineering contexts that may guide the success of these efforts (Bromme, 2000; Gidgunis, 2004; Klein 1990; Lattuca, 2001; Pfirman, 2005; Young, 2001). Most research is associated with humanities and the social sciences. For example, Lattuca’s study (2001) on the processes, products, and outcomes of interdisciplinarity generated important findings; however it is not clear how findings may relate to engineering contexts. Lattuca (2001, 2004) also identified important research opportunities such as investigating how educators approach cross-disciplinary teaching practice and the need for disciplinary “grounding” for cross-disciplinary practice. Galison (1997) investigated modern experimental practice such as high energy physics to characterize the complex web of activity around instruments and the emergence of “trading zones”. While important for advancing a theory of cross-disciplinary practice, it is unclear how findings may transfer to contexts that cross “hard” and “soft” disciplines such as engineering education research, healthcare engineering, and sustainable design. Perhaps the most extensive work in engineering is an ethnographic, longitudinal study of biomedical engineering research laboratories (Nersessian 2006; Newstetter, Kurz-Milcke et al. 2004). While this work provides deep insights into cognition and learning in innovation “agentive” environments, complementary research is needed to explore how findings may transfer to other cross-disciplinary engineering situations. There is also emerging work on the process of being and becoming interdisciplinary engineering education researchers (Allendoerfer, Adams et al. 2007; Borrego 2007).

The purpose of this proposal is to investigate the nature and development of cross-disciplinary ways of thinking, being, and acting in engineering and facilitate a scholarship of cross-disciplinary teaching and learning. This will be accomplished through the following integrated research and education activities:

(1) Longitudinal studies to investigate the nature and development of cross-disciplinary ways of thinking, acting, and being in engineering contexts, as well as how it relates to disciplinary practice

(2) Two Interdisciplinary Commons that will facilitate a scholarship of cross-disciplinary teaching and learning and enable investigations into the ways educators approach cross-disciplinary teaching practice, and

(3) Pilot studies of research-to-practice transformations to stimulate next generation activities

In the following sections I define cross-disciplinary practice, identify the theoretical concepts framing the proposed work, and describe the Research and Education plans. This is followed with a description of prior NSF support, PI qualifications, available resources, the Advisory Board, anticipated outcomes and dissemination, evaluation, and links to NSF review criteria.