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Only through successful collaborations from multi-disciplinary teams will society be able to solve our most complex engineering challenges. In order to be successful, these collaborations require effective technical leadership, a role that engineers can and should fill. However, most engineering students complete their undergraduate degrees underprepared to begin assuming a leadership role. One reason for this lack of preparation is a conflict between the development of an engineering identity and a leadership identity. This work explores this conflict using data from a national data set of college student leadership experiences compiled by the National Survey of Student Engagement. The data was used to explore the difference between engineering majors and others with regard to their leadership experiences, perceptions of leadership, and leadership development activities. Initial results indicate significant differences between engineering students, other STEM majors and non-STEM majors in their perceptions about how their leadership experiences complement their education and support their future career goals.
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Exploring the Conflict Between an Engineering Identity and Leadership
Through the efforts of government and industry, there is growing recognition among academics of the importance of developing leadership skills in engineering students. Despite this recognition and the increasing level of resource put into engineering leadership programs throughout North America, there is currently little work that illustrates how leadership fits into the broader picture of the heterogeneous nature of engineering work. This work seeks to begin closing that gap by investigating the relationship between models of engineering identity and leadership identity. The investigation is done using quantitative techniques to draw conclusions from two data sets taken from national surveys of undergraduate students in the U.S.. Initial results indicate that while engineering students are engaged in leadership positions more frequently than their peers inother fields (other STEM and non-STEM) they see less of a connection between these roles and their future careers than other students, indicating a potential conflict between an engineering identity and a leadership identity.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1664231
- PAR ID:
- 10089861
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA)
- ISSN:
- 2371-5243
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.24908/pceea.v0i0.13100
