Understanding our students : how aspects of students' pre-collegiate lives correlate with self advocacy, confidence, and risk taking

Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, February, 2021

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Walter, Sandra L.
Other Authors: Warren Seering.
Format: Thesis
Language:eng
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/130864
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author Walter, Sandra L.
author2 Warren Seering.
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Walter, Sandra L.
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description Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, February, 2021
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spelling mit-1721.1/1308642021-05-26T03:12:20Z Understanding our students : how aspects of students' pre-collegiate lives correlate with self advocacy, confidence, and risk taking How aspects of students' pre-collegiate lives correlate with self advocacy, confidence, and risk taking Walter, Sandra L. Warren Seering. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering Mechanical Engineering. Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, February, 2021 Cataloged from the official PDF version of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (pages 80-81). A US childhood trauma epidemic has created lifelong negative effects for children across the US. In addition to being connected to long term health conditions, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) make it difficult for students to learn in traditional classrooms. Although trauma-informed teaching has become popular in the K-12 setting in recent years, college classrooms remain essentially unstudied and unchanged. To measure the extent to which potentially traumatic events correlate with the self confidence, self-advocacy, and student risk-taking for MIT students, a survey of mechanical engineering undergraduates was conducted. Results suggest that ACEs are prevalent among the mechanical engineering undergraduate student body with 45% of respondents reporting at least 1 ACE. Indicators for self-confidence and self-advocacy were found to show statistically significant differences between students who reported exposure to potentially traumatic events and those who reported no exposure to potentially traumatic events. In addition, correlations were found linking exposure to ACEs with metrics of student connection to community, choice of major, and which type of class they prefer. Other diversity metrics such as gender and minority status showed correlations in some of these areas. This data indicates that students exposed to one or more potentially traumatic events may be less likely to advocate for themselves than their peers with no ACEs. The data also indicates that students who have experienced one or more potentially traumatic events are more polarized in their ability to advocate for themselves, with some demonstrating greater affinity for self advocacy and some demonstrating lesser affinity for self advocacy. by Sandra L Walter. S.M. S.M. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering 2021-05-25T18:23:34Z 2021-05-25T18:23:34Z 2021 2021 Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/130864 1252632029 eng MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 93 pages application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Mechanical Engineering.
Walter, Sandra L.
Understanding our students : how aspects of students' pre-collegiate lives correlate with self advocacy, confidence, and risk taking
title Understanding our students : how aspects of students' pre-collegiate lives correlate with self advocacy, confidence, and risk taking
title_full Understanding our students : how aspects of students' pre-collegiate lives correlate with self advocacy, confidence, and risk taking
title_fullStr Understanding our students : how aspects of students' pre-collegiate lives correlate with self advocacy, confidence, and risk taking
title_full_unstemmed Understanding our students : how aspects of students' pre-collegiate lives correlate with self advocacy, confidence, and risk taking
title_short Understanding our students : how aspects of students' pre-collegiate lives correlate with self advocacy, confidence, and risk taking
title_sort understanding our students how aspects of students pre collegiate lives correlate with self advocacy confidence and risk taking
topic Mechanical Engineering.
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/130864
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