A Systematic Literate Review of Racialized Stress, Distress, and Trauma for Black, Latin, and Indigenous Engineering Students

Elahe Vahidi; Mark Okoth Onyango; Kaitlyn Anne Thomas; Kelly J Cross; Whitney Gaskins

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Conference: 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Portland, Oregon
Publication Date: June 23, 2024
Start Date: June 23, 2024
End Date: July 12, 2024
Conference Session: Breaking barriers, building futures: Narratives of equity and inclusion in STEM education
Tagged Divisions: Equity and Culture & Social Justice in Education Division (EQUITY)
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/46497

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Mark Onyango is a graduate assistant in the Department of Engineering and Computing Education (DECE) in the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. He earned his Master’s degree in Information and Communication Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology’s School of Electronics and Information Engineering in Harbin, China and holds a Bachelor of Education (Electrical Technology) from Moi University in Eldoret, Kenya. I am extremely passionate about teaching and public information dissemination. Creating a safe, friendly and productive environment for my target audience to learn is my top priority. With a strong background in electrical engineering, I am a meticulous python programming-based data analyst with vast experience working with a variety of synthetic aperture radar datasets, arising from my two years postgraduate research studies as a Master of Engineering student. A Critical thinker continuously looking at ways of improving teacher-student engagement processes, I am adept in organizing work flow, creating lesson plans, presenting ideas in a compelling way, interacting with the learners and fellow trainers with a view to improving content delivery across a range of engineering topics in a learner-based and hands-on approach. As such, I maintain professional boundaries while building lasting relationships.
My passion for teaching encompasses circuit analysis, electrical machines and digital electronics, courses delivered while working as an assistant lecturer in Kenya at The Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology and Kiambu Institute of Science and Technology, as well as Head of Subject, Physics at Kenyatta High School. The combination of my teaching and data analysis skills earned me a position at a child and women rights community-based organization, Champions of Peace-Kisumu (CoP-K), as a capacity building coordinator, a precursor to my new action-research interest. With work experience spanning engineering industry and teaching in technical and vocational education and training institutions, my research centers on underrepresented (URM) groups with a focus on efforts to advance solutions on broadening participation in engineering spaces, both in college and the workplace.

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Kaitlyn Anne Thomas University of Nevada, Reno

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Ms. Thomas is a doctoral student at University of Nevada, Reno in Engineering Education. Her background is in structural engineering. She received her bachelor's and master's degrees in civil engineering from Southern Methodist University. Her research focus is in epistemology and epistemic injustice in engineering.

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Kelly J Cross Georgia Institute of Technology orcid.org/0000-0001-5879-9001

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Dr. Cross is currently an Assistant Professor in the Biomedical Engineering Department at Georgia Tech.

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Whitney Gaskins University of Cincinnati

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Dr. Gaskins is the Associate Dean of Inclusive Excellence and Community Engagement in the University of Cincinnati College of Engineering and Applied Science, the only African-American female currently teaching in the faculty of the College of Engineering

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Abstract

All engineering students have self-reported elevated levels of stress, distress, and trauma (SDT) during their engineering education. Black, Latin, and Indigenous (BLI) engineering students not only face the high levels of engineering stress from the culture, they can also experience racialized interaction within their engineering education. This additional contribution of SDT based on raced experiences has been defined as racialized SDT. However, racialized SDT has not been connected to the experiences of BLI students in engineering education research (EER). This literature review seeks to clarify this gap in the literature and summarize what is known about racialized SDT in engineering. The purpose of this paper is to synthesize literature on racialized SDT and its connection with the experiences of BLI students in engineering. We explored existing research and literature on this topic to answer the following research question: How has engineering education research interrogated the experiences of Black, Latin, and Indigenous students regarding racialized stress, distress, and trauma in the context of their engineering education? To address our research question, we performed a systematic literature review. First, we accumulated several articles in an initial database search of five journals relevant to EER. Once a preliminary set of articles was identified, we performed secondary and tertiary rounds of inclusion and exclusion as we read through the articles. Each round of exclusion was based on the applicability in addressing our research question. Then we performed a categorical analysis on the remaining articles to explore eight attributes: framework, methodology, population, research question, instrument, main result, related concepts, and unit of analysis. These attributes allowed us to examine possible trends between papers/studies and draw conclusions about how racialized SDT for BLI students has or has not been discussed in EER. Preliminary search results indicate that limited existing research exists on BLI students' racialized experiences and their connection to SDT. This could be attributed to the BLI students’ underrepresentation and repression in engineering spaces as well as the field’s lack of understanding of racialized SDT. This result suggests there is a gap in the literature on multiple levels. There is a gap in research on BLI students’ experiences in general, and there is a gap in research on racialized SDT in engineering learning environments. Future work includes collecting empirical data on the racialized experiences of BLI students during their engineering education from their perspective. Understanding the nuanced, intersectional experiences of BLI students in engineering will advance solutions towards disrupting and dismantling the practices that perpetuate inequitable outcomes in engineering.

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Vahidi, E., & Onyango, M. O., & Thomas, K. A., & Cross, K. J., & Gaskins, W. (2024, June), A Systematic Literate Review of Racialized Stress, Distress, and Trauma for Black, Latin, and Indigenous Engineering Students Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/46497

TY - CPAPER
AB - All engineering students have self-reported elevated levels of stress, distress, and trauma (SDT) during their engineering education. Black, Latin, and Indigenous (BLI) engineering students not only face the high levels of engineering stress from the culture, they can also experience racialized interaction within their engineering education. This additional contribution of SDT based on raced experiences has been defined as racialized SDT. However, racialized SDT has not been connected to the experiences of BLI students in engineering education research (EER). This literature review seeks to clarify this gap in the literature and summarize what is known about racialized SDT in engineering. The purpose of this paper is to synthesize literature on racialized SDT and its connection with the experiences of BLI students in engineering. We explored existing research and literature on this topic to answer the following research question: How has engineering education research interrogated the experiences of Black, Latin, and Indigenous students regarding racialized stress, distress, and trauma in the context of their engineering education?
To address our research question, we performed a systematic literature review. First, we accumulated several articles in an initial database search of five journals relevant to EER. Once a preliminary set of articles was identified, we performed secondary and tertiary rounds of inclusion and exclusion as we read through the articles. Each round of exclusion was based on the applicability in addressing our research question. Then we performed a categorical analysis on the remaining articles to explore eight attributes: framework, methodology, population, research question, instrument, main result, related concepts, and unit of analysis. These attributes allowed us to examine possible trends between papers/studies and draw conclusions about how racialized SDT for BLI students has or has not been discussed in EER.
Preliminary search results indicate that limited existing research exists on BLI students&#39; racialized experiences and their connection to SDT. This could be attributed to the BLI students’ underrepresentation and repression in engineering spaces as well as the field’s lack of understanding of racialized SDT. This result suggests there is a gap in the literature on multiple levels. There is a gap in research on BLI students’ experiences in general, and there is a gap in research on racialized SDT in engineering learning environments. Future work includes collecting empirical data on the racialized experiences of BLI students during their engineering education from their perspective. Understanding the nuanced, intersectional experiences of BLI students in engineering will advance solutions towards disrupting and dismantling the practices that perpetuate inequitable outcomes in engineering.

AU - Elahe Vahidi
AU - Mark Okoth Onyango
AU - Kaitlyn Anne Thomas
AU - Kelly J Cross
AU - Whitney Gaskins
CY - Portland, Oregon
DA - 2024/06/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - A Systematic Literate Review of Racialized Stress, Distress, and Trauma for Black, Latin, and Indigenous Engineering Students
UR - https://peer.asee.org/46497
ER -