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Exploring the Critical Incidents and Sociocultural Dynamics that Initiate and Anchor Engineering Identity Formation

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Conference

2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Portland, Oregon

Publication Date

June 23, 2024

Start Date

June 23, 2024

End Date

June 26, 2024

Conference Session

Student Division Technical Session 6: Belonging

Tagged Division

Student Division (STDT)

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

13

DOI

10.18260/1-2--47431

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/47431

Download Count

45

Paper Authors

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Kaitlyn Pope Utah State University

biography

Cassandra McCall Utah State University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-0240-432X

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Cassandra McCall, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Engineering Education Department and Co-Director of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Transition Services at Utah State University. Her research centers the intersection identity formation, engineering culture, and disability studies. Her work has received several awards including best paper awards from the Journal of Engineering Education and the Australasian Journal of Engineering Education. She holds a Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Virginia Tech as well as M.S. and B.S. degrees in civil engineering from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.

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Abstract

Engineering education scholars have identified a wide range of factors that influence the growth of an undergraduate student’s professional identity as an engineer, including internship experience, club participation, grades or other academic achievements, social interactions with peers, and family tradition. These experiences contribute to students viewing themselves as engineers prior to graduating and entering the workforce. At the same time, several factors have been known to discourage students from pursuing or continuing to study engineering. These factors, which include cultural and socioeconomic background, race, gender, and sexual orientation, can affect a student’s sense of community and belonging in engineering and other STEM fields. In this paper, we discuss the pivotal moments, significant relationships, and social interactions that participants used to anchor their engineering identities. These anchors serve as foundational reference points on which engineering identity is iteratively built and assessed. Our findings offer valuable insights into the commencement of engineering identity development, contributing to our understanding of this important, complex, and dynamic process.

Pope, K., & McCall, C. (2024, June), Exploring the Critical Incidents and Sociocultural Dynamics that Initiate and Anchor Engineering Identity Formation Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--47431

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