Collection

2024 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Molly McVey; Priscilla L. Shum

necessary component of developing a professional identity andrefers to a student’s perceived support, connections, and feeling of mattering to a group [10]. Asense of belonging is important for persistence and performance in higher education. Research © American Society for Engineering Education, 2024 2024 ASEE Midwest Section Conferenceshows that belongingness predicts academic self-efficacy [11], re-enrollment decisions [12],intentions to persist [13], academic engagement [14], and academic achievement [15, 16, 17].Specific to engineering, Marra and colleaguees [18] found that lack of belonging was among themain reasons for leaving engineering and a sense of belonging predicted intentions to

Collection

2024 ASEE Midwest Section Conference

Authors

Kasey L. Moomau; Jessica Deters; Emily Fitzpatrick

identified as an important time in forming self-efficacy and identity which willaffect career choices made in high school and college [3]. Other work [4] suggests that open- © American Society for Engineering Education, 2024 2024 ASEE Midwest Section Conferenceended STEM exploration in a group collaborative setting is conducive to positive STEM identitydevelopment, due to the identity formation that occurs in the context of relationship-buildingwith peers during STEM activities.The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is a large, public land-grant university in the Midwest,located in Lincoln, Nebraska, which contains a sizeable public school district, servingapproximately 40,000 students. A significant