Background: Engineering's introduction into K-12 classrooms has been purported to support meaningful and inclusive learning environments. However, teachers must contend with dominant discourses embedded in US schooling that justify inequitable distributions of resources. Purpose: Drawing on Gee's notion of discourses, we examine how teachers…

Background: At the graduate level, academic writing competencies are essential for graduation and careers as researchers. Little research has been done to understand how engineering writers' attitudes toward writing correspond to enacted textual patterns. Purpose/Hypothesis: The purpose of this study is to investigate current and prospective…

Background: Black engineering graduate students represent a critical and understudied population in engineering education. Gaining an understanding of the lived experiences of Black engineering graduate students while they are simultaneously weathering two pandemics, COVID-19 and systemic racism, is of paramount importance. Purpose/Hypothesis:…

Background: While previous work in higher education documents the impact of high tuition costs of attending graduate school as a key motivator in attrition decisions, in engineering, most graduate students are fully funded on research fellowships, indicating there are different issues causing individuals to consider departure. There has been…

Background: There are long-held concerns about how graduate research programs prepare engineering PhD students for professional practice. Suitable instruments are lacking to effectively assess how research experiences contribute to the success of graduate students becoming professionals. Purpose: The purpose of this work is to examine evidence of…

Background: Elementary educators are increasingly asked to teach engineering design, motivating study of how they learn to teach this discipline. In particular, there is a need to examine how teachers reason about pedagogical situations and dilemmas in engineering--how they draw on their disciplinary understandings, attention to students'…

Background: Given high attrition rates and lack of interest in faculty careers, it is crucial to understand how doctoral engineering students conceptualize academia and academic careers. Purpose/Hypothesis: This study aims to characterize the development of academic disenchantment among engineering students who have considered departure from their…

Background: Laboratory studies explore the norms and characteristics of scientific practice and explain the constructive nature of knowledge production. However, how learning and research are sustained in engineering research laboratories at the graduate level requires further investigation. Purpose: We explored the cultural characteristics of an…

Background: Increasing the number of engineering graduates continues to be a national priority and influences the need to understand persistence of all student pathways. Few studies have focused on engineering transfer student pathways and their success post-transfer, suggesting a need for a more comprehensive analysis of existing research to…

Background: Given the significant roles that faculty play, it is important to understand how and why engineering graduate students choose faculty careers over other professional opportunities. Yet little is known about this decision-making process, particularly for students of color. Purpose: This article offers a rich, empirically grounded…

Background: Mental health issues reported among college-aged individuals have increased. Prevalence of these issues has an established impact on students' personal, professional, and academic outcomes. Graduate students experience unique stressors that impact their mental health. In particular, engineering graduate students have lower help-seeking…

Background: Educating engineers to reason through the ethical decisions they encounter when developing or implementing new technologies is a critical challenge. However, engineering educators have not widely adopted a framework for preparing engineering students to analyze ethical issues. Purpose/Hypothesis: We developed and tested an approach for…

Background: Graduate education literature tends to focus on faculty careers with little attention to industry careers. However, more than one-third of U.S. engineering doctorates enter industry. Purpose: Our purpose is to understand engineering graduate students' interest in industry, academia, and government careers as it relates to their…

Background: Graduate engineering students are required to write for academic audiences; however, very few engineering programs teach engineering academic writing, and similarly, little research has been conducted on graduate engineering student writing. Purpose/Hypothesis: The purposes of this study were to investigate the argumentation patterns…

Background: Professionals who pursue a doctorate after significant post-baccalaureate work experience, a group we refer to as returners, represent an important but understudied group of engineering doctoral students. Returners are well situated to leverage their applied work experiences in their advanced engineering training. Purpose/Hypothesis:…