Revising the Dissertation Institute: Contextual Factors Relevant to Transferability

Background At the graduate level, academic writing competencies are essential for graduation and careers as researchers. Little research has been done to understand how engineering writers' attitudes toward writing correspond to enacted textual patterns. Purpose/Hypothesis The purpose of this study is to investigate current and prospective graduate students' attitudes toward writing, how they correlate, and how these attitudes toward writing may correspond with enacted writing patterns. Design/Method Through an embedded mixed methods design, I investigated the rhetorical patterns within the research proposals of 50 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRFP) winners in engineering disciplines using genre analysis methods. The same participants completed a battery of validated surveys investigating their writing attitudes. I calculated within‐ and between‐scale Pearson correlations and connected the writing attitude data with rhetorical patterns from the written documents. Results Findings indicate that several writing attitudes are statistically linked, such as writer's block with perfectionism and procrastination, and productivity with knowledge transforming concepts and intuitive approaches. Further, writers employed a variety of argumentation strategies, categorized as Outcomes‐Oriented, Process‐Oriented, Methods‐Oriented, and Motivation‐Oriented, which correspond to writers' attitudes. Conclusions Instructors or advisors of graduate engineering student writing may be better able to diagnose writing issues armed with an understanding of how writing attitudes are related to rhetorical structure. Instructors or advisors of graduate engineering students can consider how the affective nature of writing influences writing habits and resulting rhetorical patterns to help students improve their academic literacy.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Related Literature and Theoretical Orientationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linking current and prospective engineering graduate students' writing attitudes with rhetorical writing patterns

Berdanier

2020

“…Most of those who do emphasize the essential components required through the PhD program to support a thriving and diverse PhD‐holding engineering workforce (Berdanier et al, 2016; Fuhrmann et al, 2011; Watson & Lyons, 2011) and the future professoriate (Burt, 2020). Scholars examine the role that advisor matching (Artiles Fonseca, 2019; Artiles & Matusovich, 2022), academic identity development (Jazvac‐Martek, 2009; Sverdlik et al, 2018), competency development (Berdanier, 2019; Cruz et al, 2019; Hasbún et al, 2016; Zerbe & Berdanier, 2020), and multidisciplinary competencies (Graybill et al, 2006; Richter & Paretti, 2009) play in the socialization of engineering graduate students. Borrego et al (2018) and Shanachilubwa and Berdanier (2020) explored how undergraduate students decided to pursue graduate school and how their trajectories have prepared them to become future scholars.…”

Section: Introduction and Review Of Relevant Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Persistence at what cost? How graduate engineering students consider the costs of persistence within attrition considerations

Sallai

Bahnson

Shanachilubwa

et al. 2023

Background: While previous work in higher education documents the impact of high tuition costs of attending graduate school as a key motivator in attrition decisions, in engineering, most graduate students are fully funded on research fellowships, indicating there are different issues causing individuals to consider departure. There has been little work characterizing nonfinancial costs for students in engineering graduate programs and the impact these costs may have on persistence or attrition.Purpose/Hypothesis: Framed through the lens of cost as a component of the expectancy-value theory framework and the graduate attrition decisions (GrAD) model conceptual framework specific to engineering attrition, the purpose of this article is to characterize the costs engineering graduate students associate with attending graduate school and document how costs affect students' decisions to persist or depart. Design/Method: Data were collected through semistructured interviews with 42 engineering graduate students from R1 engineering doctoral programs across the United States who have considered, are currently considering, or have chosen to depart from their engineering PhD programs with a master's degree. Results: In addition to time and money, which are costs previously captured in research, participants identified costs to life balance, costs to well-being, and identify-informed opportunity costs framed in terms of what "could have been" if they had chosen to not go to graduate school. As these costs relate to persistence, students primarily identified their expended effort and alreadyincurred costs as the primary motivator for persistence, rather than any expected benefits of a graduate degree. Conclusion:The findings of this work expand the cost component of the GrAD model conceptual framework, providing a deeper understanding of the

“…While recent literature in engineering education has turned attention toward issues facing graduate students, including competency development (particularly with writing) (Cruz et al, 2019;Hasbun et al, 2016), evolving professorial intentions (Burt, 2019(Burt, , 2020, academic identity development (Kajfez & Matusovich, 2020;Miller et al, 2017;Perkins et al, 2020;Satterfield et al, 2019), and graduate attrition (Berdanier et al, 2020), there is still little known about how and why students come to question whether to stay in their programs and how they engage with the decision to leave or to stay. This conversation is critical, as the literature indicates that nearly 24% of STEM PhD students seriously consider leaving their PhD programs (Ruud et al, 2016), which is less than the 36%-43% attrition for graduate students more generally (Council of Graduate Schools, 2008), but still significant.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Engineering graduate students' critical events as catalysts of attrition

Zerbe

Sallai

Shanachilubwa

et al. 2022

Background: While attrition from the PhD has been attributed to many high-level causal factors, such as funding, advisor relationship, and "fit" into a department, few studies have closely examined the mechanisms of attrition or why and how graduate engineering students begin to consider attrition from their doctoral programs.Design/Method: This study analyzed interviews with current and former doctoral engineering students at research universities across the United States, collected through two closely-related studies on graduate engineering experiences and attrition consideration. We used critical event analysis as a methodological approach to understand the experiences of a subset of 13 participants, who, at some point in their graduate career, experienced a singular event that caused them to question whether to persist in their PhD program.Purpose/Hypothesis: The purpose of the present paper is to investigate how graduate engineering students begin to question whether they should remain in their PhD programs of study.Results: We categorized the environments in which critical events occurred into four quadrants along the lines of University and Nonuniversity Settings and Routine versus Unexpected Contexts, mapping critical events and supporting events to themes from prior literature. The findings demonstrate how seemingly mundane experiences for faculty can be cataclysmic in the eyes of the student; how critical events serve to magnify other issues that had been accumulating over time; and how students may not self-reflect on their rationale for pursuing a PhD until a critical juncture occurs. Conclusions: Critical events are one mechanism by which students may begin considering departure from their engineering PhD programs. Some critical events masquerade within mundane contexts, like conversations or conferences (although, in retrospect, students can identify other relevant features contributing to dissatisfaction). From this work, we provide implications geared toward administrators, advisors, and graduate students on how to address and potentially mitigate critical events or their effects, including engaging in conversations about leaving.