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In June, the Office of Special Programs (OSP) initiated a pilot test of the survey that involved four separate groups of engineers. Invitations to participate were e-mailed to 1527 UCF-CECS engineering alumni who had active e-mail addresses on file with the UCF Foundation, Inc. Similar invitations were e-mailed to 55 ISTF technical advisors and judges who were engineers and participated in the ISTF from 2001-2003. OSP also coordinated with officials at Raytheon in St. Petersburg, Florida to invite approximately 400 of their engineers to participate. Lastly, NASA's Kennedy Space Center published an announcement regarding the survey in its newsletter. Interested persons were instructed to contact a NASA educational manager for additional information.

The OSP believes it is important for those reading the following synopsis of the pilot ISTF "Why Engineering?" Survey to understand that all participation was strictly voluntary and that no follow-up attempts to encourage participation were made with the exception of one reminder e-mail sent to participants during the 30-day response period. In larger, specially funded surveys such attempts are often made through phone calls, mailings, e-mail and face-to-face searches to encourage those who did not respond to initial requests for participation to reconsider. All of the responses received by the OSP were strictly voluntary.

The pilot survey was designed to help determine the:

  • Distribution of engineers by: age, gender, and ethnic background; pre-college, college and university experience; and employment status and views on work-related matters;

  • Insights and guidance practicing engineers could provide to pre-college students,

  • Capability of the obtained information to provide valuable insights to young students contemplating careers in engineering, and

  • Additional questions to ask from the point of view of those who participated in the pilot project.

A total of 186 engineers responded to the pilot survey by the deadline of June 30, 2003. Of that total, 151 were UCF-CSES alumni, 11 were either technical advisors or judges for past ISTF competitions, seven engineers responded from Raytheon and 17 engineers participated in response to the NASA-KSC newsletter. Each of the pilot survey questions was optional.