A Bumpy Road to Engineering Professions: Exploring the Impact of an HRD intervention on Professional Identity Development of Minority Engineering students

Abstract: Women and minoritized individuals are significantly underrepresented in most engineering programs in the United States: women representing only 19% and racial/ethnic minoritized individuals making up less than 19% (National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, 2015; Seron et al., 2018). A strong predictor of student retention in engineering is professional or engineering identity (Matusovich et al., 2010; Meyers et al., 2012). While few studies have attempted to explore the sociocultural and psychological processes of engineering identity formation (e.g., Capobianco, 2006; Eliot & Turns, 2011; Jungert, 2013; Stevens et al., 2008), there remains considerable gaps in understanding how students, especially women and students from minoritized backgrounds, develop a sense of self as engineers. To address this gap, we present preliminary findings from how a human resource development (HRD) intervention including a series of 3 workshops developed through a grant funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) impacted professional identity development of minority engineering students.
Methods
Workshop Descriptions
1. The Developmental Network (DN) workshop focused on exercises and steps necessary for the students to conduct a needs assessment of their networks to know which kind of developers they would need to construct a robust engineering identity.
2. The Imposter Phenomenon (IP) workshop had three modules that required participants to identify how IP has influenced their identity formation; their stuck points and problematic thinking patterns; and then develop an action plan to address future imposter thought.
3. The Engineering Identity (EI) workshop focused on building awareness around identity threats and opportunities, as well as their effects on marginalized students’ professional identity as engineers.
Research Design and Sampling
As part of an on-going larger study, we worked with a large engineering professional society to recruit undergraduate minoritized engineering majors. We also invited engineering students from our respective universities and solicited help from our network to recruit study participants from other R1 universities and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). We recruited 400 undergraduate engineering students from minoritized backgrounds for the larger study with whom the workshop links were shared. We invited a stratified random sample of 50 participants to submit key takeaway sheets following each workshop. Preliminary findings from the key takeaway sheets are shared below.
Data Analysis
The study employed thematic analysis to construct meaning and patterns across the key takeaway sheets (Kiger & Varpio, 2020) using the six-step process modeled after Braun and Clarke (2006).
Findings
Overall, participants were unaware of the importance of developmental networks to their engineering identity development. When asked to reflect on their current networks in the DN workshop, they indicated that they were passive with regards to the development of mentoring relationships. They used common interest, friendliness, and time spent (i.e., prolonged exposure and interactions with an individual) to forge relationships with individuals in their direct proximities. Similarly, until participating in the IP workshop, they were unaware that their feelings of anxiety and self-doubt were impostor feelings and that these were commonplace for individuals in spaces where they are underrepresented. The participants also did not have previous knowledge of the detrimental impact these feelings posed for positive identity development. This was especially salient with individuals who were not raised in an American-based context but raised outside of the United States.
Their participation in the EI workshop provided opportunities to reflect on how their race and/or gender identities could impact their experiences within engineering. Specifically, the workshops raised their awareness that they may face stereotypes or other hardships in STEM due to possessing a marginalized identity. Many were already aware of gender-based stereotypes in STEM. However, the workshops provided opportunities to affirm that these negative attributions were based in sexism rather than factual assessments of women’s (and by extension their) abilities to succeed in a STEM-related field.
Participants learned from the workshops to develop strategies for cultivating robust networks, decreasing their impostor feelings, and addressing identity threats. First, they committed to being more proactive in pursuing mentoring relationships with diverse developers that could further their careers. Second, the participants learned to reflect on and better understand the events that triggered their impostor feelings. Instead of assigning blame to themselves due to perceived lack of ability, they reassessed their initial feelings of self-doubt and ascribed them to the situation, event, or others who triggered their impostor feelings. Lastly, they generated strategies to deal with identity threats such as realizing the potential extent of the negative impact of stereotypes on their performance and redefining their sense of competence as they gained more professional experience.