Investigating engineering identity development and stability amongst first-year engineering students: a person-centred approach

ABSTRACT

Engineering identity is a rapidly evolving construct within engineering, primarily due to its link to engineering persistence. Yet, most engineering identity research has been qualitative in nature or has described individuals within the analytical technique as coming from a single population. This study is the first to allow for the detection of different meaningful groups of engineering students demonstrating similarity on the construct using the new technique of Random Intercept Latent Transition Analysis. Through this study we identified three stable classes of engineering identity amongst first-year undergraduate students. Women demonstrated a greater likelihood of advancing to higher engineering identity classes over time than men. Unfortunately, the influence of COVID-19 yielded negative engineering identity developmental patterns for some students. Lastly, descriptive analyses of students’ first-year engineering identity class assignments in relation to their selection/non-selection of engineering majors revealed Calculus-readiness upon college entrance might be an important component in these relationships.

KEYWORDS:

• Engineering identity
• engineering education
• random intercept latent transition analysis
• person-centred

Acknowledgements

Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of NSF.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) [grant no 1725880].

Notes on contributors

Mary Elizabeth Lockhart

Mary Elizabeth Lockhart, Ph.D. is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Texas A&M University. Her research focuses on what factors influence diverse students to choose and persist in STEM. Particularly, she is interested in the development and cultivation of students' STEM identities and the potential protective element these identities have in student retention. Dr. Lockhart graduated from Stephen F. Austin State University with a B.S. in Mathematics and Psychology. She then graduated from Texas A&M University with a M.S. in Mathematics and Ph.D. in Educational Psychology with a specialization in Research, Measurement and Statistics.

Karen Rambo-Hernandez

Dr. Karen Rambo-Hernandez is an Associate Professor at Texas A&M University in the School of Education and Human Development. Her research focuses on novel applications of growth modeling with educational data, the assessment of educational interventions to improve STEM education, and access for all students- particularly high-achieving and underrepresented students- to high quality education.