An Exploration of Perceptions of Justice in a Career-Forward Undergraduate Chemistry Laboratory Course

摘要

Persistence in academic and career settings is a major issue for students enrolled in science and engineering programs, particularly those who identify as female or as members of certain underrepresented ethnic minorities (URM). This exploratory study determined the degree to which organizational justice has explanatory power in complimenting the Mediation Model of Research Experiences (MMRE) in a career-forward laboratory curriculum context. A career-forward approach to curriculum targets persistence by basing the student experience on the content, context, and practices of the targeted career field in developmentally appropriate ways. Participants were 157 undergraduate students taking General Chemistry Laboratory for Engineering Majors. Confirmatory factor analysis of survey responses indicated an acceptable fit for the established four-factor model of organizational justice (χ2(164, n = 157) = 378.447, p = 0.000, IFI = 0.935, CFI = 0.934, NFI = 0.891 RMSEA = 0.092). Bivariate correlations among variables from the two frameworks show that the experience of URM students is different than that of their non-URM peers. Notably, identity as an engineer was more strongly correlated to aspects of organizational justice, and justice played a role in students’ views on teamwork. This supports a prior hypothesis that the negative relationship between teamwork self-efficacy and commitment to an engineering career for URM participants may be related to issues of marginalization within their groups. Evaluation of a combined MMRE organizational justice model with future studies is merited, especially for contexts involving the use of teamwork and/or student collaboration.