Board 253: Developing Professional Identity: Integrating Academic and Workplace Competencies within Engineering Programs

Abstract

Chemical engineering education needs to be updated to reflect its growth and inclusion of elements from various fields, such as pharmaceuticals, renewable energy, biotechnology, and consumer products. As the industry continues to expand and there is a greater need for communication and leadership abilities in the 21st century, engineers who are working are anticipated to possess both technical expertise and professional skills. However, the typical chemical engineering undergraduate core curriculum has not adapted to prepare students for the multiple needs encompassed by the chemical industry. Lack of industry-relevant examples/topics and applications in the course contents results in less motivated and/or engaged students. Students therefore often struggle to identify with the profession and are not ready for the workforce when they graduate. This NSF PFE: RIEF project examines a unique experience where a student-faculty-industry integrated community is created to help bridge the gap between industry needs and the competencies developed within chemical engineering programs. The project's main goal is to better understand how implementing contemporary industry problems into one of the sophomore chemical engineering courses impacts students' engineering identity formation and self-efficacy development. To analyze the impacts of the intervention, this project employs design-based research (DBR) approach to guide the development, implementation, and evaluation of materials and methods reflecting the proposed synergistic model for a course and program design. Implementing contemporary industry-relevant problems into the course will foster student-industry-faculty engagement (PI, engineering Co-PI, and course instructor), develop student knowledge, skills, and abilities needed in the chemical engineering world today and in the future, and support professional identity formation. Moreover, industry-student engagement through the methods proposed will develop students' societal and environmental awareness. To understand the impacts of the intervention on self-efficacy and engineering identity, we worked with industry mentors and designed contemporary industry-relevant problems, introduced them to the targeted course, developed and employed instruments for self-efficacy and engineering identity, and conducted interviews with focus groups. To measure the impact, qualitative and quantitative methods are used. This content analysis helped the project team identify challenges, difficulties, and gains of adopting this approach to the engineering program and provide an appraisal of student outcomes, including cognitive and affective responses. In this poster, the project team will share their results from Fall 2021 semester.