Developing a Role Identity as an Ambassador through Hands-On Activities

Abstract

focus on student and teacher motivation, self-regulation, and identity development, with a particular interest in the role of the environment in these processes. His recent research involves the application of the Complex Dynamic Systems approach to identity and motivation, and the use of collaborative design-based interventions to promote educators' and students' motivation and identity exploration around the curriculum. AbstractIn response to the need for a diverse, highly skilled STEM workforce that can work collaboratively and communicate effectively, colleges of engineering have developed diversityfocused recruitment, retention, and outreach efforts. Many programs have also begun to emphasize technical communication skills. A national organization that integrates these priorities is the Engineering Ambassadors Network (EAN), which trains undergraduates to raise awareness of what engineers do and how they contribute to society. Typical ambassador activities include the delivery of a presentation and a hands-on activity to middle or high school students. Currently, there are an estimated 634 EAs in the United States. For many, the ambassador role begins during a large, multi-institution workshop. Post-event surveys reveal high levels of ability, confidence, and preparedness to create and deliver outreach presentations. Post-workshop interviews reveal that the training offers a platform for role identity development. The ambassador role aligns career-related motivations, resonance with messages contained in the National Academy of Engineering's Changing the Conversation report, beliefs about the mission of the EAN, and plans for fulfilling the Network's mission. After the initial training, students' role identities reflect an integration of their undergraduate engineering student role with the new role of ambassador, with the intermediary role of an effective presenter serving as a bridge. The workshop targets the need to improve students' communication proficiency, and focuses sparingly on the hands-on activity component of ambassadorship. Consequently, little is known about whether learning to create and facilitate a classroom activity impacts what ambassadorship means to students, and how these perceptions are integrated into existing ambassadorial or professional future role components of self-perceptions, goals, beliefs and action possibilities. The present study focused on two questions. 1. For students in an ambassador role during an outreach visit, what is the purpose of the hands-on activity? 2. How do ambassadors approach the development of a hands-on activity? The case study with embedded units arose from a fiveday intensive training at a small, engineering-focused university. Training involved 30 students, and a purposefully diverse sample of 8 students was obtained. All students had recently completed the national-level workshop. Post-training interviews were conducted with 4 junior and 4 senior ambassadors and elicited a narrative about the student's experiences at both the national and local tr...

What and who is an Antarctic ambassador?

“…In a scholarly context, the concept of ambassadorship, other than in reference to official state representatives, has been used only sporadically and largely in the last couple of decades, with the frequency of its usage roughly doubling between 2010 and today as compared to the previous decade (based on a simple Google Scholar search). Rather than having been adopted into the theoretical framework of a specific discipline, the concept has been used across multiple fields of study and practice, including literature (Karmi, 2008), action research in developmental theory (Mullett, Jung, & Hills, 2004), training and communication programmes (Garner, Alley, Haas, Sontgerath, & Kaplan, 2017), medicine (Hubble & Solovey, 1994), organisational citizenship (van Zoonen, Bartels, van Prooijen, & Schouten, 2018) and place management and citizenry (Hamilton, 2010; Taecharungroj, 2016). It has also been adopted in strategies relating to the teaching of science, technology, engineering and maths (Anagnos, Lyman-Holt, Marin-Artieda, & Momsen, 2014; Garner, Haas, Alley, & Kaplan, 2018; Lucas et al, 2014; Renaud & Renaud, 2013; Talbot et al, 2013).…”