The construction industry still leads the world as one of the sectors with the most work-related injuries and worker fatalities. Recent studies show that both a state of mindfulness and various personality traits contribute to individuals’ safety and work performance. This study examines the relationship between mindfulness and personality by measuring the mindfulness state of individuals against their personality traits. To achieve this objective, data were collected from a sample of 55 undergraduate students at George Mason University. Scores from the Big Five Inventory were ranked by each traits’ score (independent variable) and split into three groups: high, moderate, and low scores. The corresponding mindfulness scores (dependent variable) were analyzed to determine the relationship between high/low personality traits and mindfulness. Comparing the high/low groups using statistical analyses showed that three of the five personality traits—conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism—significantly correlate with higher mindfulness scores of individuals. As mindfulness has been shown to increase individual safety and work performance and to reduce stress, the results of this study help inform future work into translating personality and mindfulness characteristics into factors that predict specific elements of unsafe human behaviors.
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Engineering Allies: The Personalities of Cisgender Engineering Students
https://peer.asee.org/28248
The research draws from a larger study conducted at four large public universities examining the non-normative attitudes of first-year engineering students and how these attitudes might affect their collegiate experience and the development of their engineering identity. Within the survey demographics section, students were asked to report their gender with as many options as they felt appropriate to describe themselves. Students were given the option to respond “male,” “female,” “cisgender,” “transgender,” “agender,” “genderqueer,” and/or “a gender not listed.”
Of the students surveyed, 2,697 identified themselves as male or female. Of this population, 55 students additionally identified themselves as cisgender. A Welch’s t-test revealed that factors relating to engineering identity were significantly different between cisgender students who self-identified and those who did not. Self-identified cisgender students possessed higher scores on factors measuring components of engineering identity, such as Physics Performance/Competence beliefs (p = 0.001, Cohen’s d = 0.412). These students were also rated as higher on Openness from the “Big 5” personality measures (p = 0.006, Cohen’s d = 0.403), and scored significantly lower on Conscientiousness from the “Big 5” personality measures (p = 0.028, Cohen’s d = 0.343).
These data highlight the differences between cisgender identified and non-identified students. Higher Openness results indicate that cisgender students are significantly more attentive of individuals’ inner feelings and may seek out more variety in their experiences than their non-cis-identified peers. Lower Conscientiousness scores reveal that cisgender students, on average, are less likely to conform to traditional cultural norms. Additionally, stronger scores relating to engineering identity indicate that cisgender-identified students feel that they belong in engineering. Together, these findings suggest that cisgender students possess traits and attitudes that could position them as ambassadors to or changemakers within engineering culture. Future research will work to understand these differences qualitatively to inform ways in which these individuals may serve as allies or “bridgers” for individuals within engineering who do not conform to gender and sexual orientation binaries.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1428689
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10042231
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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This research paper investigates the relationship between race/ ethnicity, gender, first-generation college student status, and engineering identity using cross-sectional data from early-career engineering majors. Measures of engineering identity are increasingly used in models of engineering education to evaluate how identity contributes to success and persistence of engineering students. Engineering identity is generally assumed to contribute to educational success, with stronger engineering identity leading to persistence. At the same time, data clearly shows that persistence of engineering students varies by race/ethnicity and gender. Given these previous findings, we would expect to find that engineering identity will vary by race/ ethnicity, gender, and first generation status. Yet, relatively little work has quantitatively compared how engineering identity differs across racial/ ethnic groups and gender. While researchers are increasingly trying to gain a better understanding of engineering identity among Latina students, for example, the literature has not yet adequately accounted for how Latina students differ from their non-Hispanic white peers. This works seeks to address that gap in the literature with an exploration of the ways that race/ethnicity, gender, and first generation status work together to impact engineering identity among early-career engineering students at four public Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) in the Southwestern United States. We conducted surveys as part of a longitudinal study on STEM education. Data discussed here comes from baseline surveys of three cohorts of engineering students (N=475). Approximately two-thirds of the respondents were attending a traditional 4-year university while the remainder (N=159) were attending community college at the time of the survey. Approximately two-thirds of the respondents identified as Latinx, 27% identified as female, and 26.5% reported that they were first-generation college students. While expectations were that engineering identity would vary by race/ethnicity and gender, preliminary analyses of our data unexpectedly reveal no significant differences between Latinx and White students in terms of their engineering identity and no significant differences in engineering identity between male and female students. Interactions between race/ethnicity and gender were also tested and yielded no significant differences between early-career Latinx and White students in terms of their engineering identity. Finally, students who reported that they will be the first in their family to get a college degree had significantly lower engineering identity scores (=-.422; p=.001). These results lead us to conclude that first generation status at HSIs may be more important than gender and race/ ethnicity in the development of engineering identity for early career students.more » « less
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Background Nonbinary engineering students (i.e., engineering students that identify as outside of the gender binary) must navigate a cis- and heteronormative society, in addition to a male dominated engineering culture. Nonbinary students in higher education report high levels of minority threat, lower levels of persistence than cisgender peers and lessened feelings of belonging. One avenue for supporting nonbinary students’ persistence in engineering is to increase understanding of the types of individuals that support nonbinary students and the supports available to nonbinary engineering students. For this study, we are utilizing social capital theory and Devor’s witnessing and mirroring framework to explore the supports nonbinary engineering students access through their social networks and how those supports impact persistence. Social capital, the resources embedded into social relationships, has been used as both an indicator and outcome in relation to students’ well-being, belonging, academic success, and persistence. Devor’s witnessing and mirroring framework brings greater meaning to the value of transgender and cisgender alters in a nonbinary engineers’ network. Specifically, how cisgender alters witness a nonbinary person’s identity as an outsider to gender nonconformity and how transgender alters mirror a nonbinary person’s experience as an insider to gender nonconformity. Purpose: The purpose of this work in progress is to identify supports that are impactful on nonbinary engineering students’ persistence in their majors and careers. Specifically, we ask the questions: 1) What supports do alters, of differing genders, provide that witness and mirror nonbinary engineers; 2) to what extent are supports provided by alters impactful on students' success in their majors and careers? Methodology/approach: We purposely selected 4 nonbinary engineering students to interview from a larger study on engineering students’ social capital and professional skills. Nonbinary engineering students were asked about their experiences of being nonbinary in engineering spaces, the support they received from cisgender and transgender alters and the impact of that support on their persistence in engineering. We analyzed the themes in the interviews by coding the alters mentioned, the types of supports provided (mirroring, witnessing, expressive and instrumental) and the impact of supports on persistence. Future Work and Implications: The finding of this study will contribute to a greater understanding of the social capital and social networks of nonbinary students, as there is dearth of research on their experiences in engineering spaces. This work can guide our understanding of the supports that nonbinary engineering students have available to them and perhaps more importantly, the supports they do not have available to them. The findings from this study will be used to inform organizational and institutional policies to support engineering students in accessing more social capital.more » « less
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