Work in Progress: Common Reading Experience: Assessing the Impact on Perceptions, Identity, and Belonging Among First-year Engineering Students

• Published in: Association for Engineering Education - Engineering Library Division Papers
• Main Authors: Hirshfield, Laura, Dailey, Michael, Edington, Stacie
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Atlanta American Society for Engineering Education-ASEE 23.06.2018
• Subjects: Colleges & universities; Data collection; Demographics; Engineering education; Engineering schools; Gaging; Reading; Students; Workflow

The Common Reading Experience (CRE) is a program for incoming first-year engineering students. Each student receives a copy of the selected book in the summer prior to starting classes. After reading the book over the summer, students participate in a 1.5 hour discussion session led by upper-level engineering students during the first month of classes. These discussions cover important themes in the book, and how these topics relate to engineering and the experiences of first-year students. By having a shared experience, we know students build community with one another. We want to expose students to what it means to be an engineer, both the technical aspects, as well as non-technical competencies, such as creativity & innovation, intercultural intelligence, and a collaborative spirit. Finally, we hope students want to engage in the many intellectual opportunities provided during their time here, whether it is Common Reading Experience events, or other programs. In this work-in-progress paper, we present results from assessment done on the Common Reading Experience to determine how the CRE impacts first-year students’ sense of community, feelings of belonging, engineering identity, and perceptions of diversity and of engineering. The study participants included students entering the College of Engineering in the fall of 2017, who participated in the CRE, and a comparative group of non-engineering students, who did not participate in the CRE. Students were invited to complete a pre-CRE survey, sent out before the books were distributed and a post-CRE survey, taken after they participated in the discussion sessions. The surveys consisted of items gauging students sense of community, feelings of belonging, engineering identity, and perceptions of diversity and of engineering. Student demographic information was also collected. While data collection is still ongoing at the time of abstract submission, the paper will present a comparison of the student data from each survey to elucidate how the Common Reading Experience impacts first-year students as they assimilate into the College of Engineering.