Engineers are socialized to believe they make rational judgments by objectively using logic. This belief is at odds with engineering practice, where judgments are typically complex and difficult to quantify. Researchers have established that what individuals believe they will do and how they actually behave is often not the same. This gap can be particularly problematic for engineers where the judgments they make have significant implications not only for their organizations but the broader community and environment. Increasing engineers' awareness of gaps between their beliefs and behavior is important to help generate awareness of any discrepancies that may need to be mitigated in future judgments. We explored how engineering practitioners and students reacted when made aware of gaps between how they thought they would behave (espoused beliefs) and how they behaved when making judgments in the context of a process safety game (simulated gameplay behavior). Specifically, we answer the following research question: How do engineering practitioners and students react when presented with gaps between their espoused beliefs and simulated gameplay behavior? We conducted and analyzed qualitative, semi-structured interviews during which participants (13 industry practitioners and 12 engineering students) were asked to respond to the gaps that previous analysis had identified between their espoused beliefs and simulated gameplay behaviors. We used inductive coding strategies to develop themes characterizing their ways of reacting and then used pairwise comparisons to compare the reactions of practitioners and students. When presented with a gap in their espoused beliefs and simulated gameplay behaviors, engineering practitioners and students reacted in both similar and different ways-they equally blamed elements of the game for causing these gaps, citing boundaries posed by the game as limiting their desired behavior. In addition, practitioners tended to invoke their prior experiences and describe the parallels between the game and reality, but were less likely to engage in reflection when presented gaps. Meanwhile, students tended to engage in reflection, discussing changes to their future behaviors and beliefs. Students' justification of their gaps also referenced a desire to "win"the game which showcased the influence of game-based elements, such as scoring metrics, had on their behavior. These findings suggest that students are more likely to engage in reflective thinking, highlighting tailored interventions that raise awareness of belief-behavior gaps for students transitioning into professional roles.

Gaps between how individuals believe they will behave and how they actually behave can be consequential, particularly in engineering education and engineering practice. Research addressing such gaps must first identify where they exist. This paper presents research design steps intended to support scholars in systematically comparing beliefs about intended behaviour with observed behaviour. We articulate three key steps: operationalising a phenomenon as a measurable behaviour and belief about that same behaviour, designing data collection and analysis methods that validly capture each construct, and creating an appropriate means of comparison. For each step, we describe key considerations, relevant prior work, and guiding questions. We illustrate implementation via case study examining engineering students' 'process safety judgements. Although the examples centre process safety, these steps are intentionally generalisable across engineering education and professional practice. This framework enables actionable insights and provides a foundation for future work aimed at reflection, change, and improved beliefs-behaviours.

Background Students' identification with engineering is intertwined culturally with being smart. Broadly, engineering students are often considered to be smart by others and by themselves, and these beliefs about smartness—what it is and who has enough of it to be an engineer—are a fundamental and limiting aspect of students' experiences. Purpose The purpose of this study was to explore how undergraduate engineering students describe themselves as smart enough to be engineers. We aimed to develop rich descriptions of the complex ways they articulate their identities as smart before coming to college and during the first two years of their undergraduate degrees. Design/Method We collected data through a series of interviews with 25 participants. We iteratively and collaboratively analyzed the data to determine the predominant ways the participants articulated their identities as smart enough to be engineers. We generated a qualitative data display to check for patterns related to pathways into engineering programs and privileged social identities. Results We found that engineering students have three different ways to articulate that they are smart enough to be engineers: (1) they have innate abilities, (2) they are hardworking and dedicated to learning, and (3) they have skills and experience related to engineering. Additionally, we provide qualitative evidence that the innate abilities articulation relates to privilege. Discussion/Conclusion The study participants engaged in identity work that produced the three articulations. As engineering educators, we need to take responsibility for the ways in which our participation in the cultural practice of smartness reproduces inequity.

This study investigates differences in collaborative behaviors among undergraduate engineering capstone students through a behavioral sorting methodology. Using the Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (CATME-B), 25 students from a senior-level interdisciplinary engineering capstone course sorted collaborative behaviors according to their observed frequency in collaborative experiences. The sorting revealed patterns worth further investigation across technical/task-oriented, process-oriented, and interpersonal/social dimensions of collaboration, with variations emerging between demographic groups. Technical behaviors showed consistent observation across the sample, while process-oriented and interpersonal behaviors exhibited notable variability. The initial results suggest that collaborative behaviors may be influenced by sociocultural dynamics, with students adapting their engagement strategies in response to identity-related and culturally situated contexts. This preliminary investigation indicates the need for further research to examine how students' perceptions and attitudes toward collaborative behaviors influence their engagement in engineering group work; particularly focusing on the relationships between individual beliefs, group contexts, and behavioral choices. Such understanding could inform theoretical models of engineering collaboration and guide the development of evidence-based approaches to collaborative learning.

In this full research paper, we present a subset of the findings from an ethnographic study assessing the degree of value congruence between undergraduate computer science students and their institution. Our primary motivation for the work was to highlight the importance of centering students in undergraduate computer science education. We argue that any serious effort to center students must consider student values in relation to institutional values. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore value congruence through the following research question: how do undergraduate computer science students' values relate to their beliefs about the values of their institution? To answer the research question, we conducted an ethnography using the Developmental Research Sequence (DRS) as the methodological framework. Using DRS, we conducted the study in the lab portion of a first-year undergraduate computer science course composed of sixteen students for a semester. Broadly, we found that students experience value congruence in some ways but not others. For the purposes of this paper, we highlight several findings centered around the specific kinds of resources that students use in their studies. For example, students believe that their institution deeply values resources like textbooks and homework while they deeply value resources like friends, YouTube videos, and practice exams. Given that this work surfaced areas of low value congruence between students and their institution, we argue that centering student values can begin with small changes like reconsidering the design and usage of textbooks or finding ways to incorporate friendship in the curriculum.

This full-length research paper will review the use of institutional ethnography (IE) in engineering education research (EER). IE is an approach and sociology developed by Dorothy Smith from feminist standpoint theories to uncover ruling relations - the hidden norms, policies, structures, and rules that govern socially regulated institutions. Previous studies using IE in EER have mainly focused on graduate students and faculty and have shown how ruling relations in engineering reproduce a gendered and racialized experience. While this paper will not describe an empirical study, it provides a contribution to the research community by synthesizing how this methodology has been used, discussing challenges and opportunities, and outlining the authors' plans to leverage IE in the engineering contexts of co-curricular programs and faculty well-being.

BackgroundBeliefs are a complex research construct with deep connections to innumerable different research areas and agendas. Engineering education researchers are increasingly studying beliefs, and synergy across these efforts can lead to a greater impact in translating beliefs research into educational practice.PurposeOur purpose was to enable any researcher in engineering education to productively research beliefs as a construct. Specifically, we aimed to synthesize the different purposes for studying beliefs, and the extent to which researchers have operationalized beliefs.Scope/MethodWe conducted a systematic scoping review of beliefs following the PRISMA protocol. We extracted and mapped data from the 79 academic included manuscripts. We performed additional analysis using both inductive and deductive coding methods to synthesize how beliefs have been researched. We included studies about the beliefs of engineering students in post-secondary education beyond the four most popular types of beliefs (i.e., self-efficacy, mindset, epistemic, and goal orientation beliefs).ResultsGiven the diverse nature of beliefs in engineering education, we found that the findings of the included studies could not be coherently synthesized. Instead, we present (1) a synthesis of researchers' purpose(s) for studying beliefs, and (2) a detailed representation of the many ways in which researchers have operationalized beliefs using different theories and methodological approaches.ConclusionsWe recommend that researchers studying beliefs work to align their stated purpose for studying beliefs with their research contribution and build understanding of how beliefs ultimately relate to behavior. We also identified an opportunity for researchers to carefully and explicitly operationalize beliefs as a research construct.

The underrepresentation of non-male and non-white individuals continues to be a persistent problem at all levels of engineering. In undergraduate education, multiple pathways into engineering degree programs (e.g., introductory courses offered at regional campuses and community colleges) are often viewed as a way to broaden participation in the field by increasing access and affordability. However, research within the K-12 context has uncovered that such educational tracking practices, similar in structure to those seen in higher education, often function in ways that perpetuate social inequalities. Often students in less prestigious tracks develop lower self-beliefs and educational attainment goals while being offered less resource and educational support. Despite these parallels, little is known about how institutionalized pathways function in higher education in terms of equity, access, and inclusion. In addition to the lack of knowledge about institutionalize pathways, little is known about the impact of beliefs about smartness which are directly tied to the various pathways. With an emphasis on math and science, common public messaging emphasizes that in order to be an engineer, one has to be smart regardless of pathway. As such, the beliefs that students hold about smartness and how they identify as smart can impact who chooses to pursue in engineering, through what pathways they engage, and who persists in engineering degree programs. The overall objective of this study is to understand what, if any, patterns exist in the beliefs about smartness and self-identities of undergraduate engineering students across institutionalized pathways. Specifically, this three-year qualitative study aims to explore: 1) What students believe about smartness and engineering and 2) how students express their self-identities as smart and engineers. In this executive summary and poster, we will report on initial findings from preliminary analysis of the first of a series of three interviews over the course of our participants' first- and second-years including engineering students from six different institutionalized pathways that feed into one college of engineering.

Contribution: This study examined the role of the engineering and smartness identities of three women as they made decisions about their participation in engineering majors. In addressing the under-representation of women in engineering, particularly in electrical engineering and computer science fields where they have been extremely under-represented, it is important to consider engineering identity as it has been shown to be an important component of major selection and persistence. Background: Smartness is inextricably linked to engineering and prior work has shown that identifying as smart is salient to students who choose engineering majors. However, the relative roles of students’ engineering and smartness identities as they relate to academic decision making and persistence in engineering is not well understood. Research Question: How do engineering identity and smartness identity relate to women’s decisions about choosing engineering majors in the instances of joining engineering, changing engineering major, and leaving engineering? Methodology: Data were collected from a series of three interviews with three different women. Data condensation techniques, including writing participant summary memos and analytic memos, focused on detailing participants’ academic decisions, engineering identity, and smartness identity were used for analysis. Data visualization was used to map the women’s engineering identity and smartness identity to their academic decisions related to their majors. Findings: The findings indicate the participants’ smartness identity was salient in the initial decision to matriculate into engineering, both their engineering and smartness identities remained stable as they persisted in or left engineering. And reveal complex interactions between these identities and decision making.

The notion of being smart is a concept that underpins the culture of engineering classrooms. That said, it is a topic that is not discussed or addressed by educators directly. Through this special session, we aim to give light to the concept of smartness and the problematic and oppressive practices that result from it given the extent literature on the topic including our own research into the domain. With participants, we aim to generate practical approaches to addressing smartness that work in a variety of contexts to broaden participation in engineering via more inclusive classrooms.

When it comes to engaging with complex, social problems, it is important to be aware of not only what one believes, but also why one believes it. Plus, focusing on beliefs about the cause of a social phenomenon (e.g., what one believes causes inequitable participation of women in engineering) rather than just beliefs about the phenomena itself (e.g., what one believes about the extent to which gender inequity exists in engineering) is an important contribution to broadening participation because one's causal beliefs relate to their ideas about what needs to happen to make engineering more equitable. In this paper, we describe our use of Thinking as Argument (TaA) as a promising theoretical framework for exploring how engineering educators arrive at their beliefs about the cause of gender-based inequity in engineering. According to TaA, the type of robust argument that is desirable for one to commit to their beliefs about the cause of complex social phenomena includes five distinct components: causal theory, evidence, counterargument, counterevidence, and rebuttal. By conducting interviews about gender-based inequity using TaA, we can explore 1) the ways in which individuals articulate their causal beliefs as arguments of varying sophistication, and 2) the ways in which individuals use evidence to commit to their beliefs. In this contribution, we: describe TaA as a framework, document how we used TaA in a pilot study to inform our ongoing research on engineering faculty's causal beliefs, and provide initial evidence for TaA theory as a novel methodological contribution for studying beliefs related to equity in engineering. Specifically, our use of TaA revealed that while each participant offered a belief in a system-level cause of gender-based minoritization, there was considerable variation in the ways in which they used evidence to arrive at their beliefs and in their epistemological orientation toward gender-based inequities in engineering. We believe there is value in the use of TaA to study beliefs because ultimately, when we increase our explicit awareness of our commitment to our causal beliefs, we are better able to behave in ways that align with our beliefs and to develop agency to disrupt oppression.

Common discourse conveys that to be an engineer, one must be “smart.” Our individual and collective beliefs about what constitutes smart behavior are shaped by our participation in the complex cultural practice of smartness. From the literature, we know that the criteria for being considered “smart” in our educational systems are biased. The emphasis on selecting and retaining only those who are deemed “smart enough” to be engineers perpetuates inequity in undergraduate engineering education. Less is known about what undergraduate students explicitly believe are the different ways of being smart in engineering or how those different ways of being a smart engineer are valued in introductory engineering classrooms. In this study, we explored the common beliefs of undergraduate engineering students regarding what it means to be smart in engineering. We also explored how the students personally valued those ways of being smart versus what they perceived as being valued in introductory engineering classrooms. Through our multi-phase, multi-method approach, we initially qualitatively characterized their beliefs into 11 different ways to be smart in engineering, based on a sample of 36 engineering students enrolled in first-year engineering courses. We then employed quantitative methods to uncover significant differences, with a 95% confidence interval, in six of the 11 ways of being smart between the values personally held by engineering students and what they perceived to be valued in their classrooms. Additionally, we qualitatively found that 1) students described grades as central to their classroom experience, 2) students described the classroom as a context where effortless achievement is associated with being smart, and 3) students described a lack of reward in the classroom for showing initiative and for considerations of social impact or helping others. As engineering educators strive to be more inclusive, it is essential to have a clear understanding and reflect on how students value different ways of being smart in engineering as well as consider how these values are embedded into teaching praxis.

Background: Those who participate in engineering are often assumed to be smart by others. At the same time, the cultural construction of what counts as "smart" is biased and therefore functions as a barrier to broadening participation in engineering. While considerable work has been done to understand engineering identity, how students understand themselves as smart is rarely made explicit in engineering identity research. Purpose: This paper is a theoretical discussion which highlights the need for engineering identity research to integrate students' understanding of themselves as smart. By not incorporating students' understanding of themselves as smart explicitly in work on engineering identity, we allow the bias in what gets recognized as smart to remain implicit and oppressive. Scope: In this paper, we argue that the idea of smart is very salient in engineering contexts and contributes to inequity. Then, we demonstrate how three different framings of identity allow for the explicit integration of how students are understanding themselves as smart. We also present selected examples from our empirical data to illustrate the concrete ways in which students' understandings of themselves as smart manifest in an engineering context. Conclusions: We provided explicit opportunities for researchers to integrate students' understandings of themselves as smart across three different framings of identity and how such understanding has shown up in our empirical research. In doing so, we conclude that making "smart" explicit in engineering identity provides a way to understand the exclusionary nature of engineering, and a new lens to apply when considering efforts to broaden participation in engineering.

The marginalization of women in engineering is a persistent problem. The overall goal of our collaborative project was to promote interest and participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), particularly for high school girls. We took an action research approach with a local high school science teacher to develop, implement, and research the impact of a classroom-based intervention designed to encourage growth mindset and STEM self-efficacy beliefs using mixed methods. We analyzed pre- and postsurvey data collected using a control-treatment design to determine the impact of the intervention on high school boys' and girls' self-efficacy and mindset beliefs. We also conducted semi-structured, one-on-one interviews with purposefully selected participants from the treatment group to further explore students' mindset and STEM self-efficacy beliefs qualitatively. We found that the intervention did result in a statistically significant change towards more growth-oriented beliefs for the high school girls who received the intervention as compared to the control group. We found that the intervention did not result in any statistically significant change in the girls' self-efficacy beliefs, the boys' mindset beliefs, or the boys' self-efficacy beliefs. The qualitative analysis revealed that after receiving the intervention, students held contradictory beliefs about the role of effort and the role of innate ability in STEM achievement. Further, we found that context and gender mattered in how students justified their self-efficacy: boys and girls both expressed the belief that effort would lead to their ability to succeed in science classes, but the girls were less likely than the boys to express the belief that effort would lead to their ability to succeed in the context of a science career. By connecting our findings to broader cultural narratives, we suggest that for the continued success of intervention efforts aimed at promoting a growth mindset and STEM self-efficacy, particularly for girls, such efforts should include opportunities for students to reflect upon and unpack the broader cultural narratives about effort, innate ability, and the gendered stereotypes about STEM ability that inform their beliefs. Finally, from the perspective of a high school science teacher, we also advocate for more representation of women among science teachers and classroom speakers and the importance of explicitly connecting class content and success in classrooms to real-world contexts.

Background Engineers are socialized to value rational approaches to problem solving. A lack of awareness of how engineers use different decision-making approaches is problematic because it perpetuates the ongoing development of inequitable engineering designs and contributes to a lack of inclusion in the field. Although researchers have explored how engineering students are socialized, further work is needed to understand students' beliefs about different decision-making approaches.Purpose/Hypothesis We explored the espoused beliefs of undergraduate students about technical, empathic, experience-based, and guess-based approaches to engineering design decisions.Design/Method We conducted semistructured one-on-one interviews with 20 senior engineering students at the conclusion of their capstone design experience. We used a combination of deductive and inductive data condensation approaches to generate categories of beliefs.Results We identified a total of nine categories of beliefs, organized by approach. Although students' espoused beliefs did reflect the emphasis on technical approaches present in their socialization, they also described technical approaches as limited and overvalued.Conclusion The landscape of beliefs presented make explicit both the challenges and the opportunities that students' beliefs play as the backdrop for any efforts of engineering educators to develop engineers as effective and equitable engineering designers.

What does it mean to be “smart” in an engineering classroom? How do engineering students make sense of themselves as smart enough to be engineers? The development of shared beliefs about what it means to be “smart” and where you rank compared to others is a result of smartness as a cultural practice. With the cultural practice framing, smartness is not a noun – something that someone possesses a certain amount of, but rather it is a verb – something that is actively happening to and with others in context. The interactions between individuals result in shared beliefs about what it means to be smart. Specifically, when we participate in smartness as a cultural practice, we learn what is recognized as smart and our place in the relative hierarchy of smartness. Beliefs about how to be a smart engineer become particularly impactful to students when navigating educational experiences in an area of study in which “being smart” is synonymous with the field. Engineers are constructed as “smart” in society, where the pervasive belief is that ability is something you either have or you don't. But as students transition into undergraduate engineering programs, how does their participation in the cultural practice of smartness contribute to their beliefs about what it means to be a smart engineer and their identities as smart and as engineers? Our study generated empirical evidence for how. We conducted three interviews with 25 engineering students over the course of their first and second years in an undergraduate engineering program. In the first and third interviews, we asked participants explicit questions about their beliefs and identities related to smartness and engineering. Analysis to compare the beliefs expressed in students' first and third interviews revealed that about half of the 25 participants demonstrated notable change in their beliefs of what it meant to be a smart engineer. We present empirical evidence characterizing the ways in which undergraduate engineering students' beliefs about what it means to be a smart engineer changed over the course of a year for 5 of the 25 participants. We explored these 5 participants' changing beliefs through a lens of cognitive dissonance theory. Cognitive dissonance is the misalignment between two or more of a person's beliefs and/or behaviors. People experience discomfort with dissonance and therefore work to resolve the misalignment. One way in which someone's dissonance can be resolved is by a person changing their beliefs. Using this lens, we discuss how the changes to participants' beliefs may be an artifact of students' need to resolve the dissonance between the shared beliefs and ranking in a smartness hierarchy produced during their participation in smartness as a cultural practice in the context of pre-college education and engineering education. We also make recommendations to engineering educators on how to engage in the cultural practice of smartness in a way that allows for the growth and development of students' beliefs of what it means to be “smart” in engineering.

Well-structured, de-contextualized problems that can be solved using solely technical approaches remain a large component of the engineering education curriculum. As a result, students may mistakenly believe that all engineering work can be done the same way—without the use of other approaches. Capstone design courses are an established way of exposing undergraduate students to ill-structured design tasks that more realistically reflect engineering practice. Yet, little is known about the influence of their capstone design experiences on their beliefs about how engineering design decisions are made. Our study compared students’ beliefs about four diverse approaches (technical, empathic, guess-based, and experience-based) to making engineering design decisions at the start of their capstone to their beliefs held at the end of their capstone. We conducted and analyzed qualitative transcripts from one-on-one, semi-structured interviews with 17 capstone students. We found little evidence that students’ experience in capstone courses changed their beliefs about diverse approaches to making engineering design decisions. The minimal change that we did find in students’ beliefs was primarily about guess-based approaches, and that change was not uniform amongst the students who did demonstrate change. Our findings point to the resiliency of students’ beliefs about approaches to design decisions throughout an engineering capstone design experience. Therefore, we recommend instructors foster reflexivity within their classrooms to disrupt these limited, normative beliefs about the approaches needed to make engineering design decisions.

Background Modern engineering culture is rooted in assumptions of intellectual superiority. Scholars have demonstrated that smartness functions as an oppressive cultural practice in educational settings. However, the shared ways in which undergraduate engineering students understand what it means to be smart remain largely implicit and unexamined. Purpose/Hypothesis We investigated the beliefs held by students about what it means to be smart and the role of smartness in their undergraduate education. Design/Method We conducted one-on-one, semi-structured interviews with 20 students at a predominately White institution. Our team utilized open, descriptive coding to iteratively condense our data into categories, codes, and subcodes, followed by analysis to identify and characterize the participants' commonly held beliefs. Results Students believed that being smart is working efficiently or maximizing outcomes while minimizing effort. Determining smartness as efficiency included social comparison and assumptions about effort, which introduced ambiguity into students' judgments of smartness. The resulting social hierarchy (relative positioning as smart) was commonly believed to enable or restrict access to necessary resources. Conclusions Students' belief that smartness is an individual capacity to work more efficiently than others obfuscates the reality of smartness as a cultural practice that is baked into our systems and perpetuates inequity. Without action to reveal and disrupt smartness as a structural and oppressive practice, the status quo of inequitable participation in engineering will persist.