Board 102: Development of the Persistence of Engineers in the Academy Survey (PEAS)

This paper reports the development procedure for the Persistence of Engineers in the Academy Survey (PEAS). Faculty are identified as the pivotal resource around which the outcomes of postsecondary education revolve; therefore, it is essential to understand who they are, what they do, and whether, how, and why they are changing. As one critical component of the PEAS, this paper details a procedure for the development of a scale to probe the factors that may affect a faculty member’s persistence in relation to gender/sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, and SES identities framed in intersectionality. Therefore, the PEAS includes a scale to measure constructs related to persistence and demographic items to capture the respondents’ various social identities. To create a valid measure of the underlying constructs, several steps were taken during the scale development, including face/content validity analyses, exploratory factor analyses for validity evidence, and internal consistence reliability evidence. Through two pilot studies from 394 STEM faculty from three institutions, the factor structure of the PEAS scale was identified to have 10 factors indicated by 60 items with good internal consistency reliability evidence. To finalize the items and factor structure of the instrument, confirmatory factor analyses are planned, targeting engineering faculty in nation. The finalized PEAS are expected to contribute to the development of a more diverse workforce in the engineering academy.

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