Ways of Being Smart in Engineering: Beliefs, Values, and Introductory Engineering Experiences

Amy Kramer; Rachel Louis Kajfez; Emily Dringenberg

doi:10.3991/ijep.v14i1.41633

Authors

Amy Kramer The Ohio State University https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6206-2571
Rachel Louis Kajfez The Ohio State University https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9745-1921
Emily Dringenberg The Ohio State University https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7635-7047

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3991/ijep.v14i1.41633

Keywords:

First-year engineering education, multi-method, equitable classroom practices

Abstract

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.

Author Biographies

Amy Kramer, The Ohio State University

Amy Kramer, P.E., Ph.D., is a Lecturer in the Department of Engineering Education at The Ohio State University. Dr. Kramer earned her B.S. and M.S. in Civil Engineering and worked as a structural engineering consultant prior to earning her Ph.D. in engineering education from The Ohio State University. Through innovative scholarship and pedagogy, Dr. Kramer aims to broaden conceptions of what it means to think like an engineer and engages engineers in critical reflection on the relationship between engineering and society. Her goal is to foster critically conscious, socially responsible, and inclusive engineers equipped with the knowledge, skills, and critical frameworks necessary to address complex societal issues.

Rachel Louis Kajfez, The Ohio State University

Rachel Louis Kajfez, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at The Ohio State University. She earned her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Civil Engineering from Ohio State and earned her Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Virginia Tech before joining the faculty at Ohio State in 2013. Her research interests focus on the intersection between motivation and identity of undergraduate and graduate students, first-year engineering programs, mixed methods research, and innovative approaches to teaching. She is the principal investigator for the RIME Collaborative.

Emily Dringenberg, The Ohio State University

Emily Dringenberg, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at Ohio State University. She holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering (Kansas State ‘08), a M.S. in Industrial Engineering (Purdue ‘14) and a Ph.D. in Engineering Education (Purdue ‘15). Her team, Beliefs in Engineering Research Group (BERG), utilizes qualitative methods to explore beliefs in engineering. Her research has an overarching goal of leveraging engineering education research to shift the culture of engineering to be more realistic and inclusive—especially with regard to beliefs about diverse approaches to engineering design decision making, smartness, and the causes of race- and gender-based minoritization. In general, she is always excited to learn new things and work with motivated individuals from diverse backgrounds to improve the experiences of people at any level in engineering education.