Racial profiling Archives - Engineering Professors Council

Case enhancement: Developing a school chatbot for student support services

Activity: Stakeholder mapping to elicit value assumptions and motivations.

Author: Karin Rudolph (Collective Intelligence).

Overview:

This enhancement is for an activity found in point 5 of the Summary section of the case study.

What is stakeholder mapping?

Stakeholder mapping is the visual process of laying out the people, also called stakeholders, who are involved with or affected by an issue and can influence a project, product or idea.

What is a stakeholder?

Stakeholders are people, groups or individuals who have the power to affect or be affected by a process, project or product.

Mapping out stakeholders will help you to:

Identify the stakeholders you need to collaborate with to ensure the success of the project.
Understand the different perspectives and points of view people have and how these experiences can have an impact on your project or product.
Map out a wide range of people, groups or individuals that can affect and be affected by the project.

Stakeholder mapping:

The stakeholder mapping activity is a group exercise that provides students with the opportunity to discuss ethical and societal issues related to the School Chatbot case study. We recommend doing this activity in small groups of 6-8 students per table.

Resources:

Materials:

To carry out this activity, you will need the following resources:

1. Sticky notes (or digital notes if online).

2. A big piece of paper or digital board (Jamboard, Miro if online) divided into four categories:

- Manage closely.
- Keep satisfied.
- Keep informed.
- Monitor.

3. Markers and pencils.

The activity:

Begin the activity by asking the students to write a list of stakeholders involved in or affected by the school chatbot.
Once the list of stakeholders is ready, ask the students to allocate each stakeholder according to one of the four categories.

Board One

List of stakeholders:

Below is a list of the stakeholders involved in the Chatbot project. Put each stakeholder on a sticky note and add them to the stakeholders map, according to their level of influence and interest in the projects.

Top tip: use a different colour for each set of stakeholders.

School Chatbot – List of Stakeholders:

- CEO
- Developer
- Student placement
- Academy principal
- Academy board
- Academy students
- Academy teachers
- Teaching assistants
- Parents
- Funding body (Local Authority)
- School administrators
- School counsellors
- Career advisors
- Pastoral leads/wellbeing officers
- Special needs (SEND) workers
- GPs local practice
- Media/local press
- External staff contractors
- Competitors (companies offering similar services).

Placement:

Place the sticky notes with the stakeholders you choose from the list and add them to the stakeholders’ map.
Map out your stakeholders on the grid to classify them by both their influence and interest in the project.
The position of the stakeholder on the grid shows you the actions that you could take with their engagement.

Guidance:

Each quadrant represents the following:

Category: Manage closely. These stakeholders have high power and are highly interested. Their level of interest is an opportunity to maximise the benefit of the project.
Category: Keep satisfied. These stakeholders have high power, but they are not very involved in the project.
Category: Keep informed. These stakeholders have low power but high interest. They are supporters of the project and can be helpful. Keep them involved.
Category: Monitor. These stakeholders have low power and low interest in the project. They only require monitoring.

Board One

Motivations, assumptions, ethical and societal risks:

Materials:

1. A big piece of paper or digital board (Jamboard, Miro if online) divided into four categories:

- Stakeholders.
- Motivations.
- Assumptions.
- Ethical/societal risks.

2. Sticky notes (or digital notes if online).

3. Markers and pencils.

The activity:

Using the sticky notes from the previous stakeholders activity, ask students to discuss some of the scenarios and situations that can arise as a result of using the School Chatbot.
Ask students to write these scenarios down and add them to Board 2, according to each category: stakeholders, motivations, assumptions, and ethical and societal risks.
Discuss some issues this project can bring and ask students to write them on sticky notes according to each category.

Board Two

The Board Two activity can be done in two different ways:

Option 1:

You can use some guiding questions to direct the discussion. For example:

What role does stakeholder X play in this project?
What is their main motivation?
Can you think of any obstacle or conflict this stakeholder could face?
What is their assumption about the use of the chatbot? (Positive or negative.)
What are the potential ethical/ societal risks of using a chatbot in this context?

Option 2:

We have already written some assumptions, motivations and ethical/societal risks and you can add these as notes on a table and ask students to place according to each category: stakeholders, motivations, assumptions, and ethical and societal risks.

Motivations:

To develop a new revenue stream.
To help in developing the product.
The chatbot could present potential risks to students.
To obtain commercial gain.
To help students get access to online support 24/7.

Assumptions:

The product will help the company and the students. Any criticism shouldn’t be considered.
We can use data from students without any constraints.
The chatbot will improve the performance of students.
The institution will take precautions to prevent harm to students.
Criticism won’t be well received and it can result in losing my job.

Potential ethical and societal risks:

Lack of due diligence. Not enough understanding of the steps required to process data in an ethical manner.
Privacy risks. Data subjects (students) didn’t consent to their data being used in this context.
Risk of manipulation. Lack of engagement with the potential users can result in a lack of understanding of their needs and expectations.
Risk of surveillance. Students could be under constant monitoring, resulting in lack of freedom.
Risk of profiling. Use of sensitive historical and current data can reinforce biases and existing inequalities.
Conflict of interest.
Lack of psychological safety. Employees don’t feel empowered to express their views.
Lack of transparency/explainability. Potential lack of processes in place to explain how the algorithm works and makes decisions.
Using a human name can give the false impression of friendship, which can be used to manipulate users.
Over reliance on digital tools. This can undermine support provided by health care professionals and career advisors.
Using a gendered name (Alice) can reinforce negative stereotypes (for example, females as assistants).
Change of expectations. Constant access to information and resources can change the expectations teachers have about the student’s behaviours.
Lack of human agency/control. Students could modify their behaviours due to constant monitoring, resulting in a lack of agency and control over their environment.
Lack of involvement in the consultation that might result in poor advice/content.
Job instability and potential job losses.
Risk of disempowerment. Parents can be left out without access to information about their children’s wellbeing and performance.
Lack of diversity/consideration of a variety of students – for example students with special needs, neurodivergent students – that can result in standardised or harmful advice.

Move and match:

In the board below, you will find sticky notes with a list of stakeholders, motivations, assumptions, and ethical and societal risks.
Move and organise the sticky notes to match each category.
Discuss your options with the rest of the team and add new ethical and societal risks as you go.

Reflection:

Ask students to choose 2- 4 sticky notes and explain why they think these are important ethical/societal risks.

Potential future activity:

A more advanced activity could involve a group discussion where students are asked to think about some mitigation strategies to minimise these risks.

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

Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.

Theme: Graduate employability and recruitment, Research

Author: Dr Salma .M.S. Al Arefi (University of Leeds)

Keywords: Science and Social Capitals, Sense of Belonging, Intersectionality, Student Success

Abstract: Being in a marginalised position due to feeling of otherness because of one’s gender as well as intersecting identity can create psychological hidden barriers. Coupled with science and social capitals such variables are key determines of student’s self-concept of engineering self-efficacy, competencies, and abilities. The impact of being othered may not only be limited to interest for participation in engineering but could extend beyond and significantly affect student engagement, success, and affiliation with engineering. This could impact students’ sense of belonging to their degree programme, university, and discipline, leading to adverse impacts ranging from low engagement to low attainment, or discontinuations. Such experiences can be greatly exacerbated for students with intersecting identities (‘double, triple, jeopardy’), e.g., a female student who identifies as a first-generation, working-class, disabled, commuter, carer, neurodiverse or mature student. This report presents work on progress on a student-centred interventional case study on exploring the impact of the intersectional lived experiences of underrepresented, disadvantaged and minoritised student groups in engineering beyond obvious gender and pre-university qualifications characteristics.

1. Problem Statement

Initiatives on closing the technical skills gap remain limited to access to either engineering education or the workplace. Identifying and supporting students facing barriers to continuation can be key to enhancing student success in a way that bridges the gap between the ignition of interest and transition to the engineering industry. Early but sustained engagement throughout the life cycle of an engineering student is however vital to cultivate students’ sense of belonging to their modules, degree programmes and the wider industry. That would in turn support the formation of their engineering identity.

Gendered identity, as well as pre-university qualifications, are yet perceived to exert the strongest force for marginalisation and underrepresentation in engineering education and the workplace. The impact intersecting identities can have in relation to ignition of interest, participation, as well as the formation of engineering identity, also need consideration. Along with gender, characteristics such as race, class, age, or language can have an added impact on already minoritized individuals (the ‘double, triple, quadrant…. jeopardy’), whereby the experience of exclusion and otherness can be exacerbated by overlapping marginalised identities. Coupled with the self-concept of own science capital, efficacies, and competencies [1-2], the formation of engineering identity could be expressed as a direct function of a sense of inclusion or otherwise exclusion [3]. Within this context, such an inherent feeling of connectedness describes the extent to which the lived experience of individuals is acknowledged valued and included [4], which is a healthy fertilizer for the formation of engineering identity. Perceived threats to one’s belonging due to a feeling of exclusion or rejection could on the contrary negatively impact one’s perception of self-efficacy and hence affiliation with engineering.

2. Project Aims

The role of effect in learning to foster a sense of belonging and enhance a coherent sense of self and form the engineering identity has attracted growing pedagogical research interest. In academia, a sense of belonging has been shown to excrete the largest force on one’s intent to participate in engineering and to be the key sustainable vehicle for successful progressions. Because engineering learning activities are pursued in complex social interactions, acknowledging, and understanding the role of belonging in academic success is key to fostering an inclusive culture that encourages and recognises contributions from all. It is hoped that the project outcomes can advise on understanding to support underrepresented, marginalised and minoritised students overcome self-perceived psychological barriers to their degree programme, university, or engineering workplace. The intersectional lens of the project is aimed to uncover key culprits that impact engineering identity formation for traditionally underrepresented, disadvantaged and minoritised students beyond obvious gender and pre-university education characteristics.

Outcomes will role model fostering an inclusive culture where engineering students from all backgrounds feel that they belong in an effort to support engineering higher education institutions to adhere to the changes introduced by the Engineering Council to the U.K. Standards for Professional Engineering Competency and Commitment around recognising inclusivity and diversity. This should be applicable to other STEM-related disciplines.

3. Decolonial partnership

The project centres on students’ voices through a decolonial participation approach that acknowledges participants as co-researchers and enables them to take an active role in the co-creation of the project deliverables. Participation will be incentivised through recognition (authorship, certifications) as well as financial incentives. The use of evidence-based active listening to enable students to share their lived experiences of belonging through storytelling and story sharing is hoped to create a safe space to empower and acknowledge student voices so that every student feel that they matter to their degree programme, university, and discipline. That in turn would cultivate authentic learner identity and a sense of belonging.

4. Outcomes and future work

The findings are hoped to advise on a sustainable support approach whereby early and sustained engagement (throughout the student lifecycle from access to continuation, attainment, and progression) are prioritised to facilitate the transition of students into and from Engineering. Co-created artefacts from the project will be used to support access and continuation by providing examples of lived experiences for prospective students to associate with. Fostering a sense of belonging is hoped to have a direct impact on learner engagement, success, and attainment as well as enhancing students’ ability to progress towards achieving their unique goals beyond their degree.

The second phase of the 2-year project will involve student recruitment and selection, interventional listening, storytelling-based approaches and co-creation of artefacts.

Acknowledgement

The work is carried out as part of the fellowship of the Leeds Institute for Teaching Excellence in partnership with Dr Kendi Guantai, from Leeds Business School, Marketing Division and Dr Nadine Cavigioli Lifelong Learning Centre at the University of Leeds.

References

H. M. Watt, “The role of motivation in gendered educational and occupational trajectories related to maths,” Educational Research and Evaluation, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 305-322, 2006.
F. Pajares, Gender differences in mathematics self-efficacy beliefs. Cambridge University Press, 2005.
M. Ong, C. Wright, L. Espinosa, and G. Orfield, “Inside the double bind: A synthesis of empirical research on undergraduate and graduate women of color in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics,” Harvard Educational Review, vol. 81, no. 2, pp. 172-209, 2011.
T.L. Strayhorn, 2018. College students’ sense of belonging: A key to educational success for all students. Routledge.