The purpose of our study is to synthesize all of the relevant prior work regarding Latino students matriculating through 2-year to 4-year institutions and completing engineering bachelor’s degrees. The approach we used to identify and synthesize the articles is systematic review methodology. Systematic review is a set of methodologies to identify relevant primary studies (e.g., journal articles, technical reports, dissertations, conference papers) from multiple sources and synthesize results from these studies. The inclusion criteria we have defined for the sources are: (1) provides a clear definition of how student success was defined, e.g., transfer, retention, graduation, satisfaction, intent to complete degree; (2) presents empirical evidence of at least one individual or contextual factor that contributes to success of Latino students at two-year institutions or any students who have transferred from a two-year to a four-year institution in the United States; and (3) published as a report, article, conference paper, or dissertation in English since 1990. We screened thousands of abstracts and identified 67 describing relevant interventions. Most focused on Latino student success at 2-year institutions, while only a few addressed transfer student or Latino STEM student success. Studies covered a wide range of intervention types including: counseling, academic and career mentoring, internships, research opportunities and scholarships. The findings of each study were generally positive or neutral, but the wide variety of interventions and success measures and low quality of study designs precludes drawing conclusions about the efficacy of specific interventions. Rather, recommendations focus on stronger evaluation designs and transferability of findings to help build a stronger research base.
Erica Winterer is pursuing her PhD in STEM Education from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to her work as a Graduate Research Assistant, she spent four years in New Orleans teaching high school math and science. She received her BSE in Biomedical Engineering from Tulane University in 2012.
Dr. Jeffrey E. Froyd is a Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at the Ohio State University, College Station. He received the B.S. degree in mathematics from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. He was an Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. At Rose-Hulman, he co-created the Integrated, First-Year Curriculum in Science, Engineering and Mathematics, which was recognized in 1997 with a Hesburgh Award Certificate of Excellence. He served as Project Director a National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Education Coalition in which six institutions systematically renewed, assessed, and institutionalized innovative undergraduate engineering curricula. He has authored over 70 papers and offered over 30 workshops on faculty development, curricular change processes, curriculum redesign, and assessment. He has served as a program co-chair for three Frontiers in Education Conferences and the general chair for the 2009 conference. Prof. Froyd is a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), an ABET Program Evaluator, the Editor-in-Chief for the IEEE Transactions on Education, a Senior Associate Editor for the Journal of Engineering Education, and an Associate Editor for the International Journal of STEM Education.
Maura Borrego is Director of the Center for Engineering Education and Professor of Mechanical Engineering and STEM Education at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Borrego is Senior Associaate Editor for Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering. She previously served as Deputy Editor for Journal of Engineering Education, a Program Director at the National Science Foundation, on the board of the American Society for Engineering Education, and as an associate dean and director of interdisciplinary graduate programs. Her research awards include U.S. Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), a National Science Foundation CAREER award, and two outstanding publication awards from the American Educational Research Association for her journal articles. All of Dr. Borrego’s degrees are in Materials Science and Engineering. Her M.S. and Ph.D. are from Stanford University, and her B.S. is from University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Julie P. Martin, Ph.D. is an associate professor of Engineering and Science Education at Clemson University. Her research agenda has focused on diversity and inclusion in engineering education. In particular, her NSF-funded CAREER work has investigated how social relations—operationalized as social capital—influence student academic decisions and success, especially for underrepresented and underserved students. Her CAREER research supports the need for continued proactive outreach, educational and support systems that have the potential to form “resource-rich” networks in which students receive information and resources in routine exchanges. Dr. Martin’s current projects evolve her prior research on social and cultural capital away from a normative state that requires students to conform to the mainstream institution of engineering education. In addition to research, she is deeply interested in STEM education policy, and held a Science and Technology Policy Fellowship with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2012-2013. Dr. Martin has held a variety of national leadership positions during her decade-long involvement in ASEE and Women in Engineering ProActive Network (WEPAN). In 2016, she won the ASEE Educational Research and Methods Division Distinguished Service award.
http://orcid.org/https://0000-0002-5662-0853
The University of Texas, Austin
[biography]
Nathan (Hyungsok) Choe is a doctoral student in STEM education at UT Austin. His research focuses on the development of engineering identity in graduate school and underrepresented group. Nathan holds a master's and bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Illinois Tech. He also worked as an engineer at LG electronics mobile communication company.
jared received his PhD in Educational Leadership with a concentration in Sociology from Clemson University. He specializes in the ways in which social narratives and constructs, such as race, gender, class, and the American Dream, affect individual meaning making, beliefs, values, and expectations. jared currently works at Clemson University as a postdoctoral researcher in Engineering and Science Education examining how identity impacts engineering students' educational experiences.
Margaret J. Foster is the Systematic Reviews Coordinator and Associate Professor at the Medical Sciences Library at Texas A&M University. With over 10 years experience in conducting and consulting on systematic reviews, she has contributed to hundreds of theses, dissertations, and publications across several disciplines.
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