“Never Met Them in Person, But We Help Each Other”: Black Women’s Experiences in Online Undergraduate Engineering Programs

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24059/olj.v28i3.3936

Abstract

In this empirical analysis, we provide a qualitative investigation of online learning among Black women engineering majors at one institution. Two research questions guide this analysis: (1) How do Black women describe their online program learning experiences? and (2) how do participants describe their interactions with other students and faculty in their online programs? We used an exploratory, qualitative case study research design to collect data for this project and we were guided by Harasim’s online collaborative learning framework. After conducting multiple rounds of qualitative coding, authors arrived at four major themes in response to these research questions. These themes were that participants: (1) experienced isolation, (2) witnessed varying impacts of COVID-19, (3) observed benefits and limitations of flexibility of online programs, and (4) engaged in virtual connection-building. We conclude our piece by discussing implications for faculty development and course designers.

Key words: Black women, COVID-19, engineering, flexibility, online learning 

Author Biographies

Minji Kim, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University

Ph.D. Student in the Educational Policy and Evaluation Program.

Debalina Maitra, Polytechnic School, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, Arizona State University

Associate Research Scientist.

Meseret F. Hailu, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University

Division of Educational Leadership and Innovation, Assistant Professor.

Brooke Coley, Polytechnic School, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, Arizona State University

Assistant Professor

Downloads

Published

2024-09-01

Issue

Vol. 28 No. 3 (2024): Online Learning

Section

Section III

License

Copyright (c) 2024 Minji Kim, Debalina Maitra, Meseret F. Hailu, Brooke Coley

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

As a condition of publication, the author agrees to apply the Creative Commons – Attribution International 4.0 (CC-BY) License to OLJ articles. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

This licence allows anyone to reproduce OLJ articles at no cost and without further permission as long as they attribute the author and the journal. This permission includes printing, sharing and other forms of distribution.

Author(s) hold copyright in their work, and retain publishing rights without restrictions