Relationships Between Engineering Student and Faculty Demographics and Stakeholders Working to Affect Change*

Journal of Engineering Education, Apr 2004 by Johnson, Michelle J, Sheppard, Sheri D

We used four strategies to examine the progress of the HS class of 1990 and its associated subpopulations. We recorded: (1) the number of students in the class (by gender and by ethnicity) who made decisions "a" through "e"; (2) the percentage of students who made each decision and transitioned from one stage to the next; (3) the percentage of students from the original populations in Stage 1 who reached subsequent decision points; and, (4) the percent distribution of students who reached each decision across the gender and ethnic subpopulations. We verified that reconstructed data accurately represented the progress of the HS school class by comparing the derived percentages and trends at each decision with published findings [2-5, 10].

The selection of the HS class of 1990 was not arbitraiy. It was selected as the starting point for Stage 1 because by the year 1997 (the most recent year with complete on college graduation rates, as presented in [2]) almost all class members who were going to graduate with a B.S. in engineering would have completed their degree. In addition, wherever possible, the data reported in this study excluded students who reported their resident status as temporary. If they were included, we considered their cumulative effect negligible. Key assumptions made in constructing graduate rates for Levels 1 and 2 are listed in Appendix A.

Data for Levels 1 and 2 were primarily from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) publication, Science and Engineering Doctorate Awards (SED) [12], Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering: Fall 1999 [13], and Characteristics of Doctoral Scientists and Engineers in the United States: 1999 [14]. Other data sources were used to supplement any missing data [8, 15-17]. Key assumptions made in constructing graduate rates for levels 1 and 2 are listed in Appendix B.

Resources for our investigation of stakeholders' roles came from expert interviews with persons who had past or current leadership roles, Web sites, magazines, annual reports, and other publications that referenced the organization directly or indirectly [19-30]. For each stakeholder, a profile was generated, which included a summary of major operational structure, a mission statement and/or goals, the main mechanisms they used to accomplish their goals, and their core programs. Most profiles were generated directly from information provided on the Web sites. Often times the mission statements and objectives were taken directly from the information on the Web sites.

III. RESULTS

First, we summarize trends observed in the participation rates of students in the subset of engineering pipeline for Stages 1 through 6; these data are reported in detail in Johnson and Sheppard 2002 [31]. Second, we describe trends in participation of underepresented minorities and women in Levels 1 and 2. Third, we describe the roles of stakeholders and their involvement along the engineering pipeline.

A. Students'Participation Rates from HS to Baccalaureate Degree