Structure versus Curiosity: Developing a model for understanding undergraduate students’ childhood pathways into engineering

Abstract

This study seeks to further develop an emergent model of students' pre-college pathways into engineering. In our previous research with student makers, four pathways were identified based on the nature of how pre-college activities were structured and the curiosity associated with engagement in the activity: structured-specific, structured-diversive, unstructured-diversive, and unstructured-specific. In pathways characterized by 'unstructured' activities, individuals identified that activities in which they engaged were performed with a great deal of autonomy in both how and what was explored. 'Structured' activities are those where the individuals did not self-impose or seek out the activity; activities were instead laid out by a mentor or expert. 'Specific' curiosity is where a clear path towards a specified outcome was clearly viewable by the individual creating, and 'diversive' curiosity is where activities are completed for the pure exploration or interest with no identified outcome. Three of these four pathways were identified in the first data set, while evidence of structured-diversive was missing. The absence of the structured-diversive pathway was hypothesized to be a result of the previous population interviewed rather than its absence among pre-college individuals.In this follow up study, a series of seven 60-90-minute interviews with undergraduate engineering students were conducted discussing significant events encouraging students to major in engineering. Interviewees were asked to construct a written timeline of major events that impacted their pathways into engineering, starting with their earliest childhood memories. The timelines were then used as artifacts from which participants discussed those experiences as major turning points on their journey to engineering. Interviews thus focused on the "who," "what" and "where" of each major event in their timeline. Purposeful sampling was used in this study to ensure inclusion of home-schooled student populations as well as public and private educational pathways. Our qualitative analysis of the interviews indicates the presence of all four pathways. All results taken together demonstrate how understanding individuals' experiences through early childhood and high school can evolve or stagnate with age and development.