Desiging the Pathways of Engineering Alumni Research Survey (PEARS)

Abstract

Abstract Designing the Pathways of Engineering Alumni Research Survey (PEARS)In 2008, the Academic Pathways of People Learning Engineering Survey (APPLES) wasdeployed to over 4,500 undergraduate students across the United States with the goal ofcontributing to the understanding of: (1) how students’ engineering knowledge develops andchanges over time; (2) what motivates students to study engineering; and (3) how studentsconceive of their engineering future. As a follow up to APPLES and the Academic PathwaysStudy, both sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education, thePathways of Engineering Alumni Research Survey (PEARS), a focus of the broader EngineeringPathways Study, aims to address two research questions:1. What educational and workplace factors, or combinations of factors, facilitate early careerprofessionals' transition into a professional culture, and their conceptions of and preparation fortheir specific professional careers?2. How and to what extent do the factors that influence early career professionals' professionaldevelopment contribute to their future careers?More specifically, the results of PEARS will: 1) inform the field’s understanding how the collegeexperience advances engineering students’ development as early career professionals and theirconceptions and preparations for their specific careers; 2) identify the educational and workplacefactors, or combinations of factors, that most influence the development of engineering studentsinto successful early career professionals; and 3) illuminate the pathways of early careerprofessionals in terms of planning and preparing to meet future career goals and overcomechallenges.Like its predecessor, PEARS is also an online survey with participants who are geographicallydistributed. However, instead of undergraduate students, PEARS will be piloted withengineering alumni from four institutions in fall 2011. As part of the planning process, extensiveresearch into both the design of the instrument as well as the logistics of deploying successfulonline surveys with our targeted population was conducted. This paper will outline both therationale and the literature behind the research team’s decisions regarding the content of emailrecruitment letters, the choice and number of incentives, the timing of when recruitment emailsand reminders should be sent, how long the survey should be available, and other strategies thatwere considered to maximize the survey response rates among engineering alumni. In addition,we will speak to the unique logistical considerations including partnering with alumniassociations, communicating our research questions to new stakeholders, and designing andtesting a process that could be scaled to include additional institutions and partners. Preliminaryfindings will be shared in addition to lessons learned to inform the redesign of the deploymentplan for future administrations of PEARS.

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