skip to main content

Explore Research Products in the NSF-PAR

Title: Sources of Anxiety among Engineering Students: Assessment and Mitigation
Anxiety stemming from the challenges faced by engineering students could be used as a predictor of academic performance. Such anxiety may lead to compromised student self-efficacy manifesting itself as reduced motivation, concentration, or reasoning capability. These symptoms often lead to a loss of confidence in engineering abilities and reduced commitment to engineering degree programs, resulting in lower retention. Various studies have been conducted to analyze the direct effects of both academic and non-academic sources of anxiety in engineering programs such as curriculum requirements, academic readiness (e.g. study skills), personality type, and attitudes toward learning as a means of improving future pedagogical strategies and mitigation of physiological aspects of anxiety. Less common are studies that investigate the efficacy of timely interventions in response to self-reported vulnerabilities and concerns of engineering students. This paper presents data from practical efforts to identify and mitigate anxiety among engineering students. A group of twenty-seven engineering and engineering technology students, who were part of a scholarship program, was asked to submit journal entries in which they reflected on their fears and anxieties related to their participation in their degree program. Prominent themes which emerged from student reflection included time management and its effects on academics and social activities, the likelihood of degree completion and success in engineering-specific coursework (e.g. senior capstone projects), and aspects of life following graduation such as handling accumulated debt and finding a job. As a cohort, the students participated in periodic vertically-integrated discussion groups with faculty mentors and their peers at multiple levels of seniority, and were introduced to university resources designed to address specific student needs. Results of a follow-on survey suggested that peer-to-peer discussions can be useful in alleviating anxiety on particular topics. It was also observed that the interactions facilitated by these group discussions are helpful in developing a sense of community and shared enthusiasm among the cohort.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1355872
NSF-PAR ID:
10067328
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
American Society for Engineering Education
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ( , 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference)
    null (Ed.)
    The Academy of Engineering Success (AcES) program, established in 2012 and supported by NSF S-STEM award number 1644119 throughout 2016-2021, employs literature-based, best practices to support and retain underprepared and underrepresented students in engineering through graduation with the ultimate goal of diversifying the engineering workforce. A total of 71 students, including 21 students supported by S-STEM scholarships, participated in the AcES program between 2016-2019 at a large R1 institution in the mid-Atlantic region. All AcES students participate in a common program during their first year, comprised of: a one-week summer bridge experience, a common fall professional development course and spring “Engineering in History” course, and a common academic advisor. These students also have opportunities for: (1) faculty-student, student-student, and industry mentor-student interaction, (2) academic support and student success education, and (3) major and career exploration – all designed to help students develop feelings of institutional inclusion, engineering self-efficacy and identity, and academic and professional success skills. They also participate in the GRIT, Longitudinal Assessment of Engineering Self-Efficacy (LAESE), and the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) surveys plus individual and focus group interviews at the start, midpoint, and end of each fall semester and at the end of the spring semester. The surveys provide a measure of students’ GRIT, their beliefs related to the intrinsic value of engineering and learning, their feelings of inclusion and test anxiety, and their self-efficacy related to engineering, math, and coping skills. The interviews provide information related to the student experience, feelings of inclusion, and program impact. Institutional data, combined with the survey and interview responses, are used to examine four research questions designed to examine the relationship of the elements of the AcES program to participants’ academic success and retention in engineering. Early analyses of the student retention data and survey responses from the 2017 and 2018 cohorts indicated students who ultimately left engineering before the start of their second year initially scored higher in areas of engineering self-efficacy and test anxiety, than those who stayed in engineering, while those who retained to the second year began their engineering education with lower self-efficacy scores, but higher scores related to the belief in the intrinsic value of engineering, learning strategy use, and coping self-efficacy. These results suggest that students who start with unrealistically high expectations of their performance leave engineering at higher rates than students who start with lower personal performance expectations, but have stronger value of the field and strategies for meeting challenges. These data appear to support the Kruger-Dunning effect in which students with limited knowledge of a specific field overestimate their abilities to perform in that area or underestimate the level of effort success may require. This paper will add an analysis of the academic success and retention data from 2019 cohort to this research, discuss the impact of COVID-19 to this program and research, as well as illuminate the quantitative results with the qualitative data from individual and focus group interviews regarding the aspects of the AcES program that impact student success, their expectations and methods for overcoming academic challenges, and their feelings of motivation and inclusion. 
    more » « less
  2. ; ; ( , AAAS/NSF 2019 S-STEM Symposium)
    POSTER. Presented at the Symposium (9/12/2019) Abstract: The Academy of Engineering Success (AcES) employs literature-based, best practices to support and retain underrepresented students in engineering through graduation with the ultimate goal of diversifying the engineering workforce. AcES was established in 2012 and has been supported via NSF S-STEM award number 1644119 since 2016. The 2016, 2017, and 2018 cohorts consist of 12, 20, and 22 students, respectively. Five S-STEM supported scholarships were awarded to the 2016 cohort, seven scholarships were awarded to students from the 2017 cohort, and six scholarships were awarded to students from the 2018 cohort. AcES students participate in a one-week summer bridge experience, a common fall semester course focused on professional development, and a common spring semester course emphasizing the role of engineers in societal development. Starting with the summer bridge experience, and continuing until graduation, students are immersed in curricular and co-curricular activities with the goals of fostering feelings of institutional inclusion and belonging in engineering, providing academic support and student success skills, and professional development. The aforementioned goals are achieved by providing (1) opportunities for faculty-student, student-student, and industry mentor-student interaction, (2) academic support, and student success education in areas such as time management and study skills, and (3) facilitated career and major exploration. Four research questions are being examined, (1) What is the relationship between participation in the AcES program and participants’ academic success?, (2) What aspects of the AcES program most significantly impact participants’ success in engineering, (3) How do AcES students seek to overcome challenges in studying engineering, and (4) What is the longitudinal impact of the AcES program in terms of motivation, perceptions, feelings of inclusion, outcome expectations of the participants and retention? Students enrolled in the AcES program participate in the GRIT, LAESE, and MSLQ surveys, focus groups, and one-on-one interviews at the start and end of each fall semester and at the end of the spring semester. The surveys provide a measure of students’ GRIT, general self-efficacy, engineering self-efficacy, test anxiety, math outcome efficacy, intrinsic value of learning, inclusion, career expectations, and coping efficacy. Focus group and interview responses are analyzed in order to answer research questions 2, 3, and 4. Survey responses are analyzed to answer research question 4, and institutional data such as GPA is used to answer research question 1. An analysis of the 2017 AcES cohort survey responses produced a surprising result. When the responses of AcES students who retained were compared to the responses of AcES students who left engineering, those who left engineering had higher baseline values of GRIT, career expectations, engineering self-efficacy, and math outcome efficacy than those students who retained. A preliminary analysis of the 2016, 2017, and 2018 focus group and one-on-one interview responses indicates that the Engineering Learning Center, tutors, organized out of class experiences, first-year seminar, the AcES cohort, the AcES summer bridge, the AcES program, AcES Faculty/Staff, AcES guest lecturers, and FEP faculty/Staff are viewed as valuable by students and cited with contributing to their success in engineering. It is also evident that AcES students seek help from peers, seek help from tutors, use online resources, and attend office hours to overcome their challenges in studying engineering. 
    more » « less
  3. ; ( , American Society of Engineering Education Conference Proceedings)
    High levels of stress and anxiety are common amongst college students, particularly engineering students. Students report lack of sleep, grades, competition, change in lifestyle, and other significant stressors throughout their undergraduate education (1, 2). Stress and anxiety have been shown to negatively impact student experience (3-6), academic performance (6-8), and retention (9). Previous studies have focused on identifying factors that cause individual students stress while completing undergraduate engineering degree programs (1). However, it not well-understood how a culture of stress is perceived and is propagated in engineering programs or how this culture impacts student levels of identification with engineering. Further, the impact of student stress has not been directly considered in engineering regarding recruitment, retention, and success. Therefore, our guiding research question is: Does the engineering culture create stress for students that hinder their engineering identity development? To answer our research question, we designed a sequential mixed methods study with equal priority of quantitative survey data and qualitative individual interviews. Our study participants are undergraduate engineering students across all levels and majors at a large, public university. Our sample goal is 2000 engineering student respondents. We combined three published surveys to build our quantitative data collection instrument, including the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS), Identification with engineering subscale, and Engineering Department Inclusion Level subscale. The objective of the quantitative instrument is to illuminate individual perceptions of the existence of an engineering stress culture (ESC) and create an efficient tool to measure the impact ESC on engineering identity development. Specifically, we seek to understand the relationships among the following constructs; 1) identification with engineering, 2) stress and anxiety, and 3) feelings of inclusion within their department. The focus of this paper presents the results of the pilot of the proposed instrument with 20 participants and a detailed data collection and analysis process. In an effort to validate our instrument, we conducted a pilot study to refine our data collection process and the results will guide the data collection for the larger study. In addition to identifying relationships among construct, the survey data will be further analyzed to specify which demographics are mediating or moderating factors of these relationships. For example, does a student’s 1st generation status influence their perception of stress or engineering identity development? Our analysis may identify discipline-specific stressors and characterize culture components that promote student anxiety and stress. Our objective is to validate our survey instrument and use it to inform the protocol for the follow-up interviews to gain a deeper understanding of the responses to the survey instrument. Understanding what students view as stressful and how students identify stress as an element of program culture will support the development of interventions to mitigate student stress. References 1. Schneider L (2007) Perceived stress among engineering students. A Paper Presented at St. Lawrence Section Conference. Toronto, Canada. Retrieved from: www. asee. morrisville. edu. 2. Ross SE, Niebling BC, & Heckert TM (1999) Sources of stress among college students. Social psychology 61(5):841-846. 3. Goldman CS & Wong EH (1997) Stress and the college student. Education 117(4):604-611. 4. Hudd SS, et al. (2000) Stress at college: Effects on health habits, health status and self-esteem. College Student Journal 34(2):217-228. 5. Macgeorge EL, Samter W, & Gillihan SJ (2005) Academic Stress, Supportive Communication, and Health A version of this paper was presented at the 2005 International Communication Association convention in New York City. Communication Education 54(4):365-372. 6. Burt KB & Paysnick AA (2014) Identity, stress, and behavioral and emotional problems in undergraduates: Evidence for interaction effects. Journal of college student development 55(4):368-384. 7. Felsten G & Wilcox K (1992) Influences of stress and situation-specific mastery beliefs and satisfaction with social support on well-being and academic performance. Psychological Reports 70(1):291-303. 8. Pritchard ME & Wilson GS (2003) Using emotional and social factors to predict student success. Journal of college student development 44(1):18-28. 9. Zhang Z & RiCharde RS (1998) Prediction and Analysis of Freshman Retention. AIR 1998 Annual Forum Paper. 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; ; ( , American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition -)
    This paper discusses feasible means of integrating mentorship programs into engineering and engineering technology curricula. The two main motivations for investigating the development of such programs are to improve retention rates and to augment the efforts toward increasing the enrollment of minority students. In fact, it can be argued that a mentorship program can also indirectly assist in the achievement of critical student outcomes for accreditation. The model of mentorship presented in this paper involves a vertical integration of cohorts through a series of project-based learning (PBL) courses. Furthermore, this attempt is enhanced by the introduction of incentives that encourage student involvement in undergraduate research as well as on-campus engineering organizations. The specific focus of the mentorship is on student-student relationships in addition to the conventional faculty-student relationships. These relationships allow students to learn from each other since they are able to strongly relate to each other’s experiences among their peer group. The mentoring model proposed in this paper formulates a learning community that allows the student to form a support group and a mechanism for preventive intervention, as discussed in other studies on mentoring programs. Such student engagement is commonly acknowledged to significantly benefit the students as well as the student mentors involved in the program. Data from an initial student survey that measures the efficacy of the proposed mentorship program is included in this paper and these data are discussed in detail. A 1-5 Likert scale is used for quantitative analysis of the data in order to evaluate the self-efficacy of the program. The group size of the mentorship cohort has been limited to a maximum of thirty students at this stage. Preliminary analysis of the data indicates that the participating students have a strongly positive opinion of the program. 
    more » « less
  5. ; ; ; ( , 2022 ASEE Annual Conference)
    This work-in-progress paper seeks to examine faculty choice of teaching strategies to improve students’ engineering self-efficacy [1], [2] (belief in one’s abilities to successfully accomplish tasks in engineering) as well as their reflections on the effectiveness of the teaching strategy. Increases in self-efficacy have been related to improved academic and career outcomes [3], especially for women in non-traditional fields such as engineering. The goal of the study is to determine simple yet effective strategies that can be implemented in engineering classrooms to improve self-efficacy. Seven engineering faculty members participated in a faculty learning community (FLC), a semester long program to learn about teaching strategies in each of the four areas of self-efficacy; mastery experiences (e.g., active learning, scaffolding), vicarious learning (e.g., guest lectures, peer mentors, group work), social persuasion (e.g., constructive feedback, positive self-talk), and emotional arousal (e.g., test anxiety, building rapport). The faculty then chose and implemented strategies in each of the four areas in one of their engineering courses. Monthly meetings of the FLC during implementation allowed faculty to share their experiences and suggestions for refinements in their teaching strategy. The paper examines the faculty member choice (why they chose to use particular strategies in their course) as well as their reflections on how well the strategy worked (impact on student learning vs ease of implementation). In addition, the paper examines in-class observations and student survey responses to determine if they felt a particular strategy was useful. The research seeks to identify strategies that faculty members chose and are viewed as effective by both the faculty and students. The presentation will seek additional feedback from the wider community on the effectiveness of teaching strategies to improve self-efficacy and future work will include the analysis of additional surveys that were administered to measure student self-efficacy with the goal of determining simple and effective strategies that can be implemented in engineering classrooms. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email