The Wickenden Award recognizes annually "the author or authors whose article reflects the highest standards of scholarly research in engineering education among those articles published in the Journal of Engineering Education in each volume year."

The authors' work demonstrates that "trajectories of [engineering student] persistence are non-linear, gendered, and racialized, and that higher education has developed the way in which persistence is studied based on the behavior of the majority, specifically the White, male population." Even if institutions were to treat all students equally, the authors conclude, "the outcomes will not necessarily be the same because various populations respond differently to the same conditions.... Multiple measures may be needed to describe outcomes in diverse populations."

Ohland is a co-recipient of the 2009 Wickenden Award.