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This research paper investigates the effects of a values affirmation intervention on first-year students' of marginalized genders (which includes ciswomen, trans, and non-binary/third gender students) sense of belonging and identity in engineering. In this work, we examine marginalized genders because, while each of these groups has different experiences in engineering, they are also commonly impacted by the history of engineering as hyper masculine and heteronormative. Values affirmation interventions are short classroom activities designed to affirm important aspects of students' identities and thus help them cope with aversive experiences and resist negative messages (either internalized or environmental; McQueen & Klein, 2006). Values affirmations have been previously used in STEM settings to help address stereotype threat among women students (Cetinkaya, Hermann, & Kisbu-Sakarya, 2020), threats to science identity among Latinx students (Hernandez et al., 2017), and mathematics and socialization outcomes among STEM students (Peters et al., 2017; Turetsky et al., 2020). Most relevant to this study, values affirmations have been used to decrease performance gap between men and women studying engineering (Walton et al., 2015). However, values affirmation interventions are still new to engineering, and their specific effects on engineering identity and belonging are still unknown. In this paper, we document preliminary results from an experiment testing the effects of a values affirmation during the first few weeks of a first-year, first-semester engineering course. A total of 199 participants were randomly assigned to three conditions (control, challenges, and values). Before and after completing the intervention activity, participants completed measures of their belonging, engineering identity, future time perspective, and test anxiety. They also completed a comprehensive demographics section that asked about their gender identity. Two repeated-measures ANOVAs were used to test for pre/post differences in engineering identity recognition and engineering belonging across intervention groups (control, challenges, or values) and gender identity (cismen or any marginalized gender). There was a significant gender differences in recognition (p = .015), with women and non-binary students reporting lower recognition than cismen. Recognition scores increased over time for all participants (p < .001) but this improvement was not impacted by the intervention (p = .866). There was also a significant main effect of gender on belonging (p < .001), with cismen reporting higher belonging, and a significant interaction of gender and time (p = .068), in which students with marginalized genders reported improved belonging at post-test that was still significantly lower than their cismen peers. Participation in the intervention did not significantly impact belonging for students (p = .278). Although preliminary, these findings suggest that the intervention may not benefit this population as strongly as anticipated, although future work with a larger sample and additional longitudinal data points may yet find an effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the final year of the project, CAREER: Actualizing Latent Diversity: Building Innovation through Engineering Students' Identity Development (NSF EEC 1554057). Engineering has a history of attracting and graduating look-a-like and think-a-like engineers. Those who look or think like a "stereotypical engineer" may feel more welcome in engineering and may be why engineering has attracted and graduated similar students. This research project considered the unique ways of being, thinking, and knowing--what we call latent diversity--that can be highlighted and valued. Students' latent diversity may or may not align with the values in engineering education that focus on a social/technical dualism, meritocracy, and rigor, which are built-in Whiteness and masculinity. Students, particularly minoritized students (i.e., women, Black, Indigenous, and Latinx students), may feel pushed out of engineering or they may feel the need to conform to these values to fit in. These messages create an engineering education that limits who can be an engineer as well as how these engineers are prepared to solve complex engineering problems. In this paper, we use an example of one student, John, and how he navigated his experiences through engineering over four years. We discuss how key themes of mental health and neurodiversity intersect with his identity development as an engineer over time as well as overlap and were complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic. We use this rich, single case as an example of how the mixed methods research in this study provides a nuanced understanding of students' trajectories in engineering. We also discuss the implications of this work for inclusive teaching and provide connections to existing resources and tools developed from the research project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper explores the formation and psychometrics of a survey developed to understand the identities and motivations of engineering graduate students. Within STEM, almost 50% of students leave before completing their PhD, and many interventions suggest strengthening students' identities to prevent dropout. However, engineering identity and identitybased motivation (IBM) within the engineering graduate population is not well-explored. To remedy this, two questionnaires were created, with items derived from qualitative research with graduate students. Data were collected from 227 engineering graduate students, and were analyzed for patterns in missingness (i.e., individual items skipped by participants despite overall survey completion), effects on participants' emotional state (using the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, PANAS), and validity and reliability. MANOVA analysis indicated there was no significant effect of survey focus on positive or negative affect, F(4,646) = 1.075, p = .368, but that data was not missing at random in the IBM survey, ??2(503) = 580.80, p = .009). With Exploratory Factor Analysis, the latent constructs were tested and the list of items refined. The implications of these findings for the full survey and for future studies will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]