Jennifer Detlor
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI·Education Research
Students who grow up in rural communities bring perspectives the engineering workforce needs, yet little is known about how they experience large research universities. Feeling that you belong — connected to peers, faculty and the field — is closely tied to whether students stay engaged and finish their degrees.
- Fields
Education Research
Engineering
Social Science
- Topics
engineering education
sense of belonging
rural students
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Identify which factors lead engineering students to self-identify as rural, and how strongly they hold that identity, using a survey in which students define rurality in their own terms.
- Examine how rural identity shapes students' college experience, environment and sense of belonging, using semi-structured interviews analyzed through social identity, ecological systems and belongingness theories.
- Develop evidence-based strategies, monitoring approaches and targeted interventions that help institutions strengthen belonging earlier in college for rural engineering students at risk of leaving the field.
More about the research
When that connection is missing, students are more likely to leave engineering. This project asks how rural engineering students experience belonging at a large Midwestern research university, and what institutions can do to strengthen it.
Why it matters
Universities could use the findings to spot rural engineering students at risk of disengaging and to design support that builds connection early in college. The intended results are better retention and a wider range of backgrounds and perspectives entering engineering careers.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Lance Perez
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, NE·Education Research
Identify the rural assets and structural barriers that shape engineering awareness before college, through site visits and semi-structured interviews with principals, counselors and STEM teachers at rural Nebraska high schools.
Michelle Vigeant-Haas
Pennsylvania State University, PA·Education Research
Evaluate whether five high-structure and inclusive teaching strategies raise cognitive belonging in an upper-level architectural engineering course, using surveys, in-class observations and interviews.
Lesley Berhan
University of Toledo, OH·Education Research
Examine how high school counselors, college counselors and recruiters, and faculty influence Black students' choice of engineering technology versus engineering, using focus group interviews and surveys.
The school
University of Wisconsin-Madison: 91 labs on PI Pages, $1.9B a year on research, 854 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.