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Mediating Expectations: Understanding the Influence of Grades on Professional Identity Formation in Undergraduate Engineering Students

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Conference

2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Baltimore , Maryland

Publication Date

June 25, 2023

Start Date

June 25, 2023

End Date

June 28, 2023

Conference Session

Student Division (STDT) Technical Session 5: Motivation and Support for Success

Tagged Division

Student Division (STDT)

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

11

DOI

10.18260/1-2--43611

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/43611

Download Count

138

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Paper Authors

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Jackson Clyde Smith

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Ilham Kabir

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 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

Course grades play a significant role in students’ professional development as engineers, yet little work has been conducted that examines the interplay between students’ course grades and professional identity formation in undergraduate engineering programs. In this paper, we qualitatively analyzed the interviews of eight undergraduate mechanical engineering students to address the following research questions: 1) How do undergraduate students’ interpretations of course performance influence the formation of their professional identities? and 2) How do undergraduate students’ interpretations of course performance change based on program experience (i.e., academic level)? Our findings revealed two themes associated with the ways students interpret and negotiate grades to make meaning of themselves as engineers: (1) prioritizing engineering-related experiences and relationships as indicators of engineering identity, and (2) articulating the difference between being a student versus becoming an engineer. Overall, we observed the higher a student’s academic level, the less emphasis they placed on performance feedback in the form of grades. These findings provide insight into the ways students interpret and negotiate grades as they form professional identities, and they bring into question the role of grades in engineering education.

Smith, J. C., & Kabir, I., & McCall, C. (2023, June), Mediating Expectations: Understanding the Influence of Grades on Professional Identity Formation in Undergraduate Engineering Students Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--43611

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