Developing and Implementing an Inclusive Practices Menu in Undergraduate Engineering Classrooms

Abstract

Historically minoritized and marginalized students have had harmful discriminatory experiences within and outside of their classrooms, which has been shown to negatively impact their educational outcomes. Research has illustrated how the transformation of pedagogical decisions and classroom interactions that cultivate inclusive excellence have yielded a positive climate and promoted more equitable education outcomes. The impact of creating more inclusive classrooms is abundant in the literature, however, guidance on creating inclusive environments in more technical disciplines, such as engineering, seem to lack specificity for the needs of the curriculum. The IUSE-PIPE [Improving Undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education—Proven Inclusivity Practices for Engineering] Project was a National Science Foundation (NSF)–funded study focused on providing engineering faculty with inclusive classroom practices to improve inclusivity and belonging in their classes. The specific aim of this paper is to report on the development of the inclusive engineering practices menu and to share the classroom experience results from the student perspective. The majority of students indicated their instructors’ utilized strategies from the menu and reported positively on their interactions and experiences with their instructors. When comparing students racially, White and non-White students report have dissimilar experiences with trusting their peers, discussing gaps in knowledge, speaking openly, and feeling judged during classroom participation, which are confirmed through statistical analyses (p-values less than 0.05). Across gender identity, male-identifying students reported less positive experiences when asked about trusting their peers, discussing gaps in their knowledge, and speaking openly in class as compared to their female and nonbinary/gender-fluid-identifying peers, which were confirmed through statistical analyses (p-values less than 0.05). The inclusive engineering practices menu presented in this paper is the beginning of an instructor toolkit for engineering disciplines to encourage instructors to make inclusivity integral to their class design and teaching at the collegiate level.