DEE Speaker Series

UBelong! Stories as a Promising Intervention to Address Equity Gaps in First-Year Engineering

allison godwin headshot.

Presented by Dr. Allison Godwin

Associate Professor, Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Cornell University

April 5, 2023 | 2 - 3 p.m. | 127B Cooke Hall

Abstract

Stereotypes about who becomes an engineer are pernicious—commonly known and shared but often not discussed or questioned. These “in the air” conceptualizations of an engineer as White, masculine, and often nerdy can have significant disparate impacts on students systemically marginalized in the field (i.e., women, Black, Latino/a/x, Indigenous (BLI), and transgender and gender non-conforming). This talk describes an project from the UBelong Collaborative focused on the development and implementation of an ecological belonging intervention in engineering. Our pilot work focuses on a first-year engineering course with an average racial/ethnic academic performance equity gap of 0.4 on a 4.0 Grade Point Average scale.

Stories of challenge, action, and a psychological resolution were developed through focus groups with students who had previously taken the course. These stories focused on conveying the message that struggle was normal and surmountable. These stories were a core part of a 45-minute intervention that included reflection and peer-to-peer discussion during the first week of classes. We hypothesize that these stories and the message that struggle is normal and surmountable undermines stereotype threat and promotes social belonging. Our quantitative results indicate that the intervention was effective in mitigating a belonging drop for BLI students across the semester in the treatment group. We also found that for the treatment sections, the equity gap for individual assessments was closed. Initial findings provide promising strategies for how to dispel stereotypes in engineering and shape the classroom environment to support students to achieve at their full potential.

Biography

Dr. Allison Godwin, PhD is an associate professor in the Robert Frederick Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Cornell University. Dr. Godwin graduated from Clemson University with a BS in Chemical Engineering and PhD in Engineering and Science Education. Her research focuses on how identity, among other affective factors, influences diverse students to choose engineering and persist in engineering. She also studies how different experiences within the practice and culture of engineering foster or hinder belonging and identity development.

Event Date: April 5, 2023