Work in Progress: Describing the Responsibilities of Teaching Assistants in First-Year Engineering

Programs

Rachel A. Louis Department of Engineering Education

Virginia Tech rlouis@vt.edu

Holly M. Matusovich Department of Engineering Education

Virginia Tech matushm@vt.edu

Abstract—Many engineering programs have a common first-year curriculum required for all students. The courses tend to be large in size requiring the use of Teaching Assistants (TAs) for implementation. The responsibilities of TAs vary including lecturer, lab instructor, and grader. Despite their significant presence and varied functions, little is known about the roles of TAs as a whole across institutions. This study fills a gap in the literature by describing the roles and responsibilities of TAs in multiple first-year engineering programs across the nation, providing a foundation for future work investigating TA experiences, motivation, and identity development.

Keywords-teaching assistants, first-year engineering, survey

I. INTRODUCTION Many engineering programs have a common first-year

engineering curriculum required for all engineering students. The courses tend to be large in size requiring the use of Teaching Assistants (TAs), both graduate (GTAs) and undergraduate (UTAs). The responsibilities of TAs at each institution vary from lecturers to lab instructors to graders [1, 2]. Despite their significant presence and varied functions, little is known about TAs experiences programs as a whole. Because TAs spend significant time in undergraduate classrooms and directly impact undergraduate experiences, understanding the roles of TAs is an important step in improving and enhancing undergraduate curricula. This study fills a gap in the literature by providing descriptions of the roles and responsibilities of TAs in multiple first-year engineering programs to answer the question: What are the commonalities and differences between how TAs are employed in different first-year engineering programs? This study is part of a larger sequential exploratory mixed methods [3] project that examines the experiences of TAs employed in first-year programs, specifically targeting motivation and identity development.

To date, the literature related to TAs in engineering focuses on TA development programs, TA responsibilities, and TA evaluations [e.g., 1, 2, 4, 5]. Such research typically reports on the perspectives of faculty or students with regard to their TAs, not on the TAs’ perspective. Recently, research has focused on the TA perspective, e.g., a study by Winters and Matusovich [6] explored TA feelings of autonomy, but more research in this area is needed. The larger project for this research builds

on existing work by focusing on TA perspectives in first-year engineering courses which has not been extensively studied. This paper is a foundational piece for that future work, where details about first-year programs were collected from program directors and administrators so that a baseline could be established and future TA participants could be identified.

II. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Ultimately this work will build into the analysis of

motivation and identity development of GTAs in first-year engineering programs. The theoretical framework for the larger study combines self-determination theory (SDT) and possible-selves theory (PST). SDT is a motivational framework based on three psychological needs, competence, relatedness, and autonomy [7]. Autonomy refers to a sense of ownership and control, competence refers to self-assessments of knowledge while relatedness refers to a sense of connection or belonging to a community [7]. Each of these components relates to individual intrinsic motivation where the context in which the motivation occurs is essential. PST is an identity framework wherein one looks towards who they could become in the future, both good and bad [8]. This future possible self, along with connections to your current identity and tangible goals, leads to identity development [9]. By combining these two frameworks for our future work, we can create a more complete picture of TA motivation with regard to their current context and their identity development related to future aspirations. However, before we can explore TA motivation and identity development, we must first understand the nature of the work they do in first-year programs. This study provides that knowledge foundation.

III. METHODS Currently, our dataset includes responses to an online

survey sent to 23 universities identified as having common first-year engineering curricula or programs. Based first on the researchers’ familiarity with programs, an initial list of schools with first-year programs was generated. Contacts for each university were identified through internet searches and were limited to program directors, course coordinators, and general administrators. After the initial surveys were administered,

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additional programs were identified by snowball sampling, where survey participants were asked to identify other universities that had first-year engineering programs. These programs were verified through another internet search which also produced contacts. Survey invitations were managed such that only one response from each school was obtained.

The survey consisted of questions focused on identifying the general size and structure of first-year engineering programs, the current responsibilities of both GTAs and UTAs, and the perceived pathways of TAs after they leave first-year programs. The survey consisted of nine main questions some of which were broken down into GTA and UTA sub questions. The survey took approximately 10 minutes to complete and asked for participants for future studies related to the motivation and identity development component of this work. To date, the response rate is 65% for a total of 15 responses, but the dataset is still growing.

IV. PRELIMINARY FINDINGS Based on the preliminary analysis of the surveys collected,

TAs who teach in first-year engineering programs are usually masters and/or PhD level students studying engineering. On average, first-year engineering programs have just over 800 students who participate in programs with varying content and structures including honors tracks, multiple course sequences, discipline specific sections, etc. Out of the responses gathered, only one university indicated that they did not use TAs in any capacity. Most UTAs involved in these programs are employed as graders while most GTAs are employed as lab or workshop instructors. See Figures 1 and 2 for more information about the responsibilities of TAs in first-year engineering programs. Note that totals can be greater than 15 since each respondent could mark more than one responsibility.

Figure 1: GTA Responsibilities in First-Year Programs

Figure 2: UTA Responsibilities in First-Year Programs

On average, from year to year administrators reported that approximately 50% of all TAs are new. They also indicated that they thought the most common reason for TA departure from teaching was simply graduating rather than pursuing other opportunities for teaching or even receiving funding to solely conduct research. As the database expands more results related to TAs roles and responsibilities in these programs will be explored.

V. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK The overall purpose of this survey was to gather

information regarding TA involvement in first-year engineering courses. The results of this study provide a snapshot of the current state of TA involvement with these courses and set the stage for additional studies regarding TA motivation and identity development in first-year programs. We intend for the results of our future work to be used by program administrators, course coordinators, and even the GTAs themselves to help improve GTA instruction in first-year engineering programs. This baseline information on the type of work that TAs do is essential to be able to contextualize GTA experiences, motivation, and identity develop in our future studies. Future work will answer questions such as why do GTAs choose to teach in first-year programs? What causes them to leave after only a short time of teaching aside from graduating? How have their experiences affected their development as teachers? More work is needed to truly understand the impact that TAs have in first-year engineering programs, but this study is the first step in examining their importance to engineering education.

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