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Engineering requires more bachelor's degree graduates to meet the growing demand for engineering skills globally. One way to address this demand is increasing student degree completion, which is lower than higher education in general. In particular, Black, Latino/a/x, and Indigenous (BLI) students are less likely to complete an engineering degree than their peers. BLI students experience a host of unwelcoming behaviors in engineering environments that contribute to departure without their intended degree. Improving environments to support belonging may offer one solution. Through an ecological belonging intervention, we seek to improve continued enrollment and increase belonging. Quasi-experimental methods were used in a second-semester engineering programming course. Surveys collected before and after an intervention combined with institutional data were used to test the moderation effects of the intervention on continued enrollment in engineering during the semester following the intervention. BLI students who were enrolled in intervention treatment sections were more likely to be enrolled in engineering the following fall. The intervention treatment increased belonging such that control section participants were less likely to continue to be enrolled in engineering. While research to assess the efficacy and mechanisms of the intervention is ongoing, the intervention offers promising results to address attrition, particularly for BLI students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our prior work, a cluster analysis (n = 2,339) identified four groups of engineering undergraduates' non-cognitive and affective (NCA) factors from a list of 28 dimensions such as belongingness, engineering identity, self-control, and perceptions of faculty caring. We found clusters of students that generally contained favorable student success characteristics (high belonging, high engineering identity, high motivation, and others), as well as those that were characterized by less favorable characteristics for student success (low belonging, low perception of faculty caring, and others). Higher education institutions have varying missions and profiles, and they serve different student populations. We hypothesize that as institutional characteristics are related to specific NCA (institutional characteristics may affect belongingness, stress support, perceptions of faculty caring, or other constructs from our NCA-based clusters), they may also be related to cluster membership. To test our hypothesis, we merged our dataset with institutional data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), engineering program enrollment data from the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Engineering Data Management System (EDMS), and financial data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The final data for this analysis consisted of n = 1,252 responses across 14 U.S. institutions. We used multinomial logistic regression to predict cluster membership as a function of both individual and institutional characteristics. We found that institutional characteristics correlate to cluster membership in important ways: students at large and/or and doctoral granting institutions have decreased odds of being in a generally positive cluster containing favorable student success characteristics, while enrollment at guaranteed tuition institutions increases these odds. These results elevate the role of institutional culture and its alignment to student characteristics as a key component of successful student outcomes. These results, when considered as a question of student-institution alignment, offer opportunities to rethink student academic and social support structures that encourage growth in specific NCA factors. In turn. this growth may support expanded engineering student success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The COVID‐19 pandemic has highlighted, exacerbated, and caused many challenges within engineering education. At the same time, the pandemic provided opportunities for engineering educators to learn from forced change to promote strategic efforts to improve classroom engagement and connection to better support engineering students. Purpose: We leveraged students' stories to discuss ways university administrators, faculty, and instructors can better support their students during times of global crisis and beyond the current pandemic. Design/Method: We conducted longitudinal narrative interviews with four White women engineering students from different universities in their third and fourth years. The students were selected from a larger research project because their rich and reflective stories resonated with other participant narratives, the research team, and ongoing conversations about educating during and after the COVID‐19 pandemic. Through narrative inquiry, we constructed "restoryed" vignettes and identified patterns within the four students' distinctive stories by drawing on a theoretical framework designed to examine connection and alienation. Results: The findings provided insights into how students were stressed and disconnected from their education in undesirable ways. The findings also provide insight into how those same students received support and maintained a connection to their institution, advisors, and instructors that educators could emulate. Conclusions: Our theoretical framework of connection and alienation proved helpful for understanding the experiences of four engineering students. Additionally, these stories provide practical examples of how faculty and staff can support student connections beyond the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The importance of thriving is well-established, but little is known about thriving for undergraduate engineering students. We introduce engineering thriving as the process by which engineering students develop optimal functioning in undergraduate engineering programs. Since thriving is currently underexplored in the engineering education literature, we investigated the larger body of literature on engineering student success. Purpose: We introduce the concept of engineering thriving to synthesize the largely discrete existing bodies of literature on engineering student success to bring together many different perspectives, methodological approaches, and findings that shape our understanding of engineering thriving. Our work on thriving unites disparate lines of research on engineering student success, challenges the assumption that addressing barriers automatically leads to success, and strives to change the way engineering education views student success. Scope/Method: We used the scoping literature review method to investigate papers on undergraduate engineering student success. Four databases were searched, yielding 726 initial papers that studied separate dimensions of engineering student success, such as academic, personal, cognitive, and behavioral. We integrated the relationships among these dimensions to develop an understanding of engineering thriving. Our final analysis included 68 papers after removing duplicates and applying selection criteria. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that an engineering student thriving includes multiple dimensions of success, involves cyclical processes of growth and adaptation, and consists of synergistic competencies that should ideally be studied together with as many other competencies as possible. These findings support the conclusion that engineering thriving can be understood as helping students manage constantly changing internal and external factors within the broader engineering education system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the differences in first-year and senior engineering students' engineering agency beliefs and career goals related to sustainable development. The authors also sought to understand how topics related to sustainable development in engineering courses affect senior engineering students' goals to address these issues in their careers. This work provides evidence of how students' agency beliefs may be shaped by higher education, which is essential to workforce development. Design/methodology/approach: Findings stem from two national surveys of engineering first-year (Sustainability and Gender in Engineering, n = 7,709) and senior students (Student Survey about Career Goals, College Experiences, n = 4,605). The authors compared both groups using pairwise testing by class standing. Findings: The results indicate that undergraduate studies tend to reinforce students' engineering agency beliefs to improve their quality of life and preserve the environment. Significantly more senior students selected career goals to address environmental issues compared to first-year students. In general, students undervalue their roles as engineers in addressing issues related to social inequities. Those topics are rarely addressed in engineering courses. Findings from this work suggest discussing sustainability in courses positively impact setting career goals to address such challenges. Research limitations/implications: The study compares results from two distinct surveys, conveyed at different periods. Nonetheless, the sample size and national spread of respondents across US colleges and universities are robust to offer relevant insights on sustainable development in engineering education. Practical implications: Adapting engineering curriculum by ensuring that engineering students are prepared to confront global problems related to sustainable development in their careers will have a positive societal impact. Social implications: This study highlights shortcomings of engineering education in promoting social and economic sustainability as related to the engineering field. Educational programs would benefit from emphasizing the interconnectedness of environmental, social and economic dimensions of sustainable development. This approach could increase diversity in engineering education and the industry, and by ripple effect, benefit the communities and local governance. Originality/value: This work is a first step toward understanding how undergraduate experiences impact students' engineering agency beliefs and career goals related to sustainability. It explores potential factors that could increase students' engineering agency and goals to make a change through engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Supporting undergraduate students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) has been a persistent need. However, assessing the impact of support efforts can prove challenging as it is difficult to operationalize student support and subsequently monitor the combined impacts of the various supports to which students have access simultaneously. Purpose/Hypothesis: This paper describes the development of the STEM student perspectives of support instrument (STEM‐SPSI) and explores how perceptions of student support constructs vary across engineering students. Design/Method: Following best practices for instrument development, forming the STEM‐SPSI consisted of an iterative cycle of feedback from various STEM stakeholders and two rounds of pilot testing with students at multiple institutions. We employed factor analysis to identify student‐support constructs and conduct validation procedures on the instrument. Results: Results suggest that student support can be conceptualized as a combination of 12 constructs. The STEM‐SPSI can help engineering educators evaluate their student‐support mechanisms at an academic‐unit level. Conclusions: The practical contribution of the STEM‐SPSI is to assist colleges in monitoring the extent to which their portfolio of support mechanisms is perceived as helpful by undergraduate students. This work makes a theoretical contribution to the model of cocurricular support that undergirds the instrument by producing empirical evidence for its constructs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More engineering students are needed to address climate change in their careers. These students are necessary because engineering includes designing and building machines, structures, and components that contribute large portions of society's carbon emissions. We surveyed a national sample of undergraduate engineering students (n = 4605) in their last semester of college about their desire to address climate change in their careers and the factors that predicted these responses. Possible variables for wanting to address climate change in their career included course topics, co-curricular experiences, climate knowledge, political affiliation, religion, and other demographics. The strongest factors that predicted engineering students' desire to address climate change in their career were related to a feeling of personal responsibility to deal with environmental problems, recognizing climate change as a technical (not social) issue, believing climate change is caused by burning fossil fuels and livestock production, and their engineering discipline. Students majoring in environmental and architectural engineering were more likely to want to address climate change in their careers than others. Previous known factors to increase motivation for climate action like course topics, political affiliation, student organization participation, undergraduate research experience, and environmental volunteering were not strong predictors among engineering undergraduate students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This sequential, explanatory mixed-methods study examined students' intentions to stay in or leave engineering industry careers upon graduation. We gathered survey data from 128 second-year engineering students about their intentions and attitudes. The participants were enrolled in a two-week interdisciplinary engineering summer course at University College London called How to Change the World. From this survey, we also interviewed 15 students, eight intending to stay and seven intending to leave, about their intentions and experiences that informed those decisions. We found that students' perceptions of future (motivation), expectations, experiences at university, confidence in their ability to succeed in engineering courses, and sense of belonging in engineering industry were the main contributors to their decisions to stay or leave. The two data streams combined provide a richer picture of how students may be better supported during and through their engineering degree programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Noncognitive and affective (NCA) factors (e.g., belonging, engineering identity, motivation, mindset, personality, etc.) are important to undergraduate student success. However, few studies have considered how these factors coexist and act in concert. Purpose/Hypothesis: We hypothesize that students cluster into several distinct collections of NCA factors and that identifying and considering the factors together may inform student support programs and engineering education. Design/Method: We measured 28 NCA factors using a survey instrument with strong validity evidence. We gathered responses from 2339 engineering undergraduates at 17 U.S. institutions and used Gaussian mixture modeling (GMM) to group respondents into clusters. Results: We found four distinct profiles of students in our data and a set of unclustered students with the NCA factor patterns varying substantially by cluster. Correlations of cluster membership to self‐reported incoming academic performance measures were not strong, suggesting that students' NCA factors rather than traditionally used cognitive measures may better distinguish among students in engineering programs. Conclusions: GMM is a powerful technique for person‐centered clustering of high‐dimensional datasets. The four distinct clusters of students discovered in this research illustrate the diversity of engineering students' NCA profiles. The NCA factor patterns within the clusters provide new insights on how these factors may function together and provide opportunities to intervene on multiple factors simultaneously, potentially resulting in more comprehensive and effective interventions. This research leads to future work on both student success modeling and student affairs–academic partnerships to understand and promote holistic student success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines students' claims about who can become an engineer and what it takes in engineering culture to be successful. Through longitudinal interviews with 20 undergraduate engineering students, we found that participants' descriptions of who can 'do' engineering were paradoxical. Participants simultaneously maintained that 'anyone' could do engineering and that individuals must also possess certain characteristics to become engineers. This study connects these students' responses to broader conversations regarding social advancement and meritocratic values within U.S. engineering culture. Participants' responses reflect a definition of engineering that may on the surface appear open but is in practice exclusionary to individuals who do not conform to certain expectations. While many discussions of culture in engineering focus on the values and practices of 'core' members such as faculty or practicing engineers, it is imperative to consider the understandings that students bring to their university and enact while being enculturated into the engineering profession. This study contributes to the literature by examining the ways cultural values are upheld and reified among undergraduate engineering students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Research in engineering education has highlighted the importance of identity and motivation for a number of student outcomes, including persistence. However, these constructs have often been studied separately, despite theorized and demonstrated connections between students' identity and motivation in other fields. Purpose/Hypothesis: Our study fills this gap by investigating the connections between identity and motivation. We specifically examined the connections between students' engineering role identity and future‐time perspective (FTP; a theory of human motivation) theories to understand students' interest in choosing an engineering major after their first year, which we call continuing engineering major interest. Design/Methods: The data came from a questionnaire distributed during Fall 2015 (n = 2,879). Structural equation modeling was used to understand the connections between the latent factors of engineering role identity and FTP. We also examined the predictive validity of this model on students' continuing engineering major interest. Results: Our results show connections between students' engineering role identity and the domain‐specific constructs of FTP. Identity was fully mediated by students' FTPs, and these perspectives were important for predicting continuing major interest. Engineering role identity measures explained a combined 69% of the variance in the FTP measures, and engineering role identity and FTP measures together explained 14.2% of the variance in engineering major interest. Conclusions: These findings provide empirical evidence for linking identity and motivation in studies of engineering students' career pathways. The results of this work inform how theories of identity and motivation can be used collectively in engineering education research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Prior researchers developed an instrument to measure perceived design thinking ability of first‐year students interested in engineering, and they validated the instrument through exploratory factor analysis. Purpose/Hypothesis: Our study uses the previously developed instrument to evaluate perceived design thinking ability of senior engineering students. We make a cross‐sectional comparison of this measure on a national scale. Design/Method: We surveyed a national sample of senior engineering students in 2018 and conducted a cross‐sectional comparison with results from a 2012 national sample of first‐year students who were interested in declaring an engineering major. Two‐way analysis of variance tests compared average design thinking scores across sample groups. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to improve the design thinking instrument. Results: First‐year students who intended to declare an engineering major score significantly higher (2.80) on the design thinking scale than senior engineering students (2.59) with a medium effect size of 0.4. The senior engineering sample performs significantly worse on the feedback seeking and experimentalism instrument items, but significantly better on the integrative thinking and collaboration items. We found no significant differences in perceived design thinking ability among engineering disciplines among senior students. Conclusions: Feedback seeking and experimentalism are traits that engineering educators should develop in their students to improve perceived design thinking ability. Incorporation of user‐centered design and divergent thinking in the engineering classroom are recommended as avenues to foster feedback seeking and experimentalism. We also offer recommendations to improve the design thinking instrument for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contribution: This paper found that design experiences can foster engineering identity and belongingness for early career electrical and computer engineering students. Students had different interpretations of what it meant to be an engineer (identity) and their belongingness in engineering. This paper provides novel insights into how students may be developing identities and belongingness in engineering, both critical for student retention and success. Background: Design experiences are crucial for engineering students, both for developing academic competencies and allowing students to see how they can become engineers. Existing literature has mixed results with respect to the influence of team-based design experiences on engineering identity and belongingness. Research Questions: 1) How do design experiences influence early career electrical and computer engineering students’ identification and belongingness in engineering? and 2) How do these students describe what it means to identify as an engineer and belong in engineering? Methodology: The beliefs of electrical and computer engineering students were examined using mixed methods to understand the intersection of design experiences, engineering identity, and belongingness. Findings: Students interpreted their engineering identity and belongingness differently, particularly, with respect to how design experiences can shape these attitudes. Whereas students interpreted engineering identity through their performance and interest in authentic engineering tasks, they interpreted belongingness as a means of comparing themselves to their peers. The findings have implications for engineering education researchers, and design instructors, to foster ways of being and belonging in engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contribution: The current study finds that female-identified students report stronger associations between “helping others” and interest in bioengineering/biomedical engineering than non-females, while they report less interest in electrical and computer engineering overall, with similar associations to factors such as “inventing/designing things” than non-females. Background: While women have made gains in STEM, electrical and computer engineering programs award 13% of their Bachelor’s degrees to women while bioengineering/biomedical engineering programs award over 40%. Prior work suggests that women’s persistent under-representation in electrical and computer engingeering may be due to them being drawn into other disciplines. Women persist in engineering at similar rates as men, so a better understanding of early college attitudes is needed. Research Questions: 1) How are career outcome expectations associated to electrical engineering, computer engineering, and bioengineering/biomedical engineering? 2) What are females’ interests in electrical engineering, computer engineering, and bioengineering/biomedical engineering? 3) Are outcome expectations and major interests distinct for female-identified students? Methodology: Regression analyses were conducted on multiply-imputed data of introductory engineering students at four public universities in the U.S. Findings: Students associate inventing/designing things and “developing new knowledge and skills” to electrical engineering, and associate inventing/designing things and “working with people” (negative) to computer engineering. Students associate helping others and “supervising others” (negative) to bioengineering/biomedical engineering. Female-identified students are less interested in electrical and computer engineering, more interested in bioengineering/biomedical engineering, and associate helping others to bioengineering/biomedical engineering more strongly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Background: There is a need for engineering‐specific theories and constructs to advance our understanding of student development. Student integration, widely used in educational research, is a suitable construct; however, it has also received some criticism. These critiques can be addressed by rethinking student integration and its use in the context of engineering education. Purpose/Hypothesis: This article re‐conceptualizes student integration and describes the development of the Engineering Student Integration Instrument (ESII), which measures integration, as well as provides evidence of its validity. Design/Method: Preliminary items for the ESII were developed using open‐ended survey responses from undergraduate engineering students about the impact of co‐curricular support. These items were reviewed by multiple researchers to assess question phrasing, formatting, and face validity. The resulting instrument was administered electronically to students in the College of Engineering at a large East Coast public university. Data from 586 students were used to develop evidence of validity by conducting an exploratory factor analysis on half of the data and a confirmatory factor analysis on the other half. Results: Evidence of validity indicates the appropriateness of the ESII for measuring integration and operationalizes integration constructs from the model of co‐curricular support (MCCS) for undergraduate engineering students, including academic, social, professional, and university integration. Conclusions: Grounded in the MCCS, the ESII begins to address several critiques of student integration as originally defined by Tinto's model of institutional departure, those related particularly to the measurement of the integration constructs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes beliefs related to human-caused climate change and predictors of these beliefs among students intending to pursue civil engineering. Based on a nationally distributed survey to first-year college engineering students (n = 937) in the United States, civil engineering students are less likely than others to believe that climate change is caused by humans. One reason this is a problem is because civil engineering students who do not believe in human-caused climate change are less likely to want to address climate change in their careers. Education has potential to address this gap in knowledge. For example, coverage of topics related to climate change in high school courses is a strong predictor for belief in anthropogenic climate change. For educators working with college students who may not believe in anthropogenic climate change, simply covering the topic can increase students' awareness, which would seem to lead them to more desire to address climate change issues, which is a necessity for realizing more-sustainable and resilient infrastructure systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the intersectionality of students’ race, ethnicity, and gender, to learn more about how various groups pursue sustainability goals through engineering. The lack of diversity in engineering is a persistent issue which hinders the development of more sustainable engineering solutions. Therefore, this paper investigates sustainability-related beliefs and career outcome expectations among engineering students who identify with groups underrepresented in the field. These topics are investigated using data from a national (United States) survey of students in introductory college courses. The survey sample was stratified by institution type and the number of enrolled students. Responses came from 6,772 individuals enrolled at 50 institutions. Data was analyzed, ethnicity, and gender using descriptive statistics and multinomial logistic and linear regression. The intersectional approach to analyzing the data reveal opportunities to tailor teaching and messaging for greater diversity in engineering. For example, black females are more likely than other groups to want to address food issues in their careers while white females are no different than other groups. Results like these suggest ways to excite various populations about engineering careers, which could help attract much-needed diversity of thought to engineering for sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Prior to college, many students have no experience with engineering, but some ultimately choose an engineering career. Women choose engineering at lower rates than men. This article uses critical engineering agency (CEA) to understand first-year students' attitudes and self-beliefs to predict the choice of an engineering career. Purpose/Hypothesis We investigated how first-year students' math and physics identities and students' beliefs about the ability of science to improve the world predict choice of engineering as a career and whether these beliefs differ by gender. Design/Method The data were from the Sustainability and Gender in Engineering survey distributed during fall 2011 ( N = 6,772). Structural equation modeling was used to understand first-year students' affective beliefs for predicting engineering career choice. Results Math and physics identities are important for predicting engineering choice at the beginning of college. Recognition from others and interest in a subject are positive predictors of physics and math identities. Students' performance/competence beliefs alone are negative predictors of engineering career choice but are mediated by interest and recognition from others. Student identities and agency beliefs are significant predictors of engineering career choice, explaining 20% of the variance. We also found gender differences in students' math and physics identities and agency beliefs. Conclusions This article emphasizes the importance of students' recognition beliefs and the importance of agency beliefs for women in predicting engineering career choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the differences between chemical engineering undergraduates and students from other engineering disciplines. Notable differences in career aspirations, perceived identities, and approaches to learning are discussed. Tables that show the T-test and the Chi-square test results for linearized and dichotomous variables, respectively, are presented.

Engineers are an essential part of solving the effects of climate change. They must be aware of the issues related to this phenomenon and empowered to make change to reduce and shift the impact of humans on the planet. Engineering students in their fourth-year of undergraduate studies in the United States (n = 4364) were asked 24 questions about climate change. We also explored how covering climate science-related topics in their college courses related to their understanding of climate change science. Our results indicate that climate change science was not well understood by engineering students in this sample. Only 30 percent of students in our sample understood the specific causes and methods to address it. For example, students incorrectly believed the hole in the earth ozone layer causes global climate change. This misconception is consistent with the literature on middle and high school students' understanding of climate change causes and consequences. We found that college courses and scientific publications have a positive effect on students' science knowledge related to climate change. Mainstream media, friends and family members have a reverse effect. While covering climate change and sustainable development in college courses favored students' knowledge of climate change, it was not sufficient to correct some climate change misconceptions. Our results suggest that engineering education in the U.S. does not provide an adequate impact on students' knowledge of this important topic. Understanding the science of climate change is a first step toward taking action to address it. Engineering students in the U.S. about to enter the workforce carry misconceptions about climate science, which is an educational issue that should be addressed. They need an understanding of climate change science for them to take relevant action to address it. The study provides directions to better prepare engineers to address climate change in their future practices. • Senior engineering students carry misconceptions about climate change science. • College courses and scientific publications are positive predictors of students' knowledge of climate change science. • Mainstream media, friends and family members are negative predictors of students' knowledge of climate change science. • Covering climate change or sustainable development in college courses failed to correct misconceptions about climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]