Enculturating First-Year Engineering Students: A Theoretical Framework

The curriculum challenges presented to first-year engineering instructors at a Southwestern institution in the United States as well as the need to highlight the process of theory-building in engineering education motivated a team to conduct an umbrella research project related to the enculturation of engineering students. This umbrella project has generated six conference papers and this manuscript constitutes the last of the series focusing on the changes that students experience and perceive over time, once exposed to the first-year engineering curriculum, and how these changes inform a theory of enculturation. The research questions investigated how students perceive their enculturation, once they have progressed in their engineering programs, and how the results constitute a theory of enculturation. Eight sophomore and junior level engineering students of diverse backgrounds participated in semi-structured interviews and focus groups. Their perceptions were analyzed via quantitative and qualitative strategies of inquiry (i.e. content analysis and open coding) and the resulting themes and associated frequencies were examined to constitute a theory. Informed by prior enculturation studies, this research identified eight dimensions and five themes, thirteen units in total. These thirteen units were organized in extrinsic and intrinsic factors that characterize a theory of enculturation to engineering during the first-year experience and hypothesized on how these units operate to produce professional engineers. This theory of enculturation emphasizes the role of the support systems of schools of engineering which in turn provides a framework that instructors and administrators can utilize when planning or modifying these support systems.