Floris van der Marel, Tua Björklund, Sheri Sheppard
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
While many early-career engineers in the United States leave the field of engineering in the first few years of their careers, we know little of their early professional experiences and reasoning for career plans. We conducted 33 semi-structured interviews with early-career engineers, comparing the experiences of engineers across intersections of gender and race. In particular, we examine meaningful early-career experiences and how these connect to the innate needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, as well as career intentions. Top moments on the job were often first-time experiences and milestones that enhanced the engineers’ sense of competence. Meaningful moments connected to relatedness were more often positive than negative experiences for White men, whereas experiences undermining relatedness were more common for people of color and/or women. Connections to autonomy emerged more in bottom moments, especially for White engineers. Across different intended career pathways, early-career engineers often evaluated their experiences regarding their ability to work effectively and through social validation from peers and managers (or undermined by a lack thereof). The results indicate the need for a greater understanding of early-career affordances in supporting entry and retention in the engineering workforce by promoting individual effectiveness and social validation.
Engineering StudiesENGINEERING, MULTIDISCIPLINARY-HISTORY & PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
CiteScore
3.60
自引率
17.60%
发文量
12
审稿时长
>12 weeks
期刊介绍:
Engineering Studies is an interdisciplinary, international journal devoted to the scholarly study of engineers and engineering. Its mission is threefold:
1. to advance critical analysis in historical, social, cultural, political, philosophical, rhetorical, and organizational studies of engineers and engineering;
2. to help build and serve diverse communities of researchers interested in engineering studies;
3. to link scholarly work in engineering studies with broader discussions and debates about engineering education, research, practice, policy, and representation.
The editors of Engineering Studies are interested in papers that consider the following questions:
• How does this paper enhance critical understanding of engineers or engineering?
• What are the relationships among the technical and nontechnical dimensions of engineering practices, and how do these relationships change over time and from place to place?