A Failed Attempt to Develop a Measure of Engineering Students’ Subjective Task-value for Diversity and Inclusion in Engineering

While several studies have advanced the engineering education community’s understanding of the experiences of students from underrepresented groups, less work has focused on unpacking the beliefs of engineering students more broadly as it relates to diversity and inclusion. Because generating such information is a challenging task, the purpose of this paper is to discuss the methodological lessons learned in our attempt to advance understanding of the values and beliefs students’ hold about these topics. In this paper, we discuss in detail the development of instrument items, subsequent data analysis, and lessons learned in the process. Overall, our analysis suggests that our instrument failed to define task values at a level specific enough for students to discriminate one task from another. Ultimately, we concluded that instrument items were highly correlated, thus not suitable for confirmatory factor analysis. Based on these insights, we offer pragmatic suggestions for refinement of the instrument. In these suggestions, we aim to enlighten future efforts to engage students in the diversification and inclusivity of the engineering field, and prevent future researchers from making similar methodological mistakes. INTRODUCTION Since the U.S. Congress passed the Science and Technology Equal Opportunities Act in 1980, diversifying the engineering workforce has remained a national priority [1]. This act underscored the desire to reach equal representation of genders, races, ethnicities, and economic statuses in the engineering profession [2], and emphasized the support of groups that are traditionally underrepresented in engineering, such as women, African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans [1], [3]. Diversity advocates have since expanded the conversation to recognize additional dimensions of identity, such as students with veteran status [4], [5], students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning [6], [7], and students with disabilities [8]. Most recently, the conversation has expanded to consider the role of members of predominant groups [9], [10]. For example, the Engineering Allies program at Ohio State University aims to educate men surrounding implicit and explicit masculine workplace cultures and their impact on women faculty in engineering [9]. As we work to engage more students, it is imperative to understand and measure their beliefs, which may be neutral and or negative [11]. A deeper understanding of students’ beliefs about diversity in engineering may help identify areas of opportunity, design effective interventions, and measure progress. Unfortunaltey, while several studies as noted herein have advanced the engineering education community’s understanding of the experiences of underrepresented students, less work has focused on unpacking the beliefs of engineering students more broadly as it relates to these topics.