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In the wake of COVID-19, student mental health has become a cause for concern in American universities, given rising rates of anxiety and depression amongst college-age youth. Faculty and administrators are beginning to take note of longstanding calls for a more holistic view of student life, acknowledging the impact that students’ emotional well-being has on their ability to learn. The capabilities approach is well suited to this challenge, offering a holistic account of opportunities and barriers students experience in college. Emotions are a prominent factor in many capabilities lists, including that of “emotional balance”, meaning the “ability to deal with challenges and stress”, or the “ability to be happy” (Walker et al. 2022:58). Education literature demonstrates that students’ ability to learn is significantly influenced by their emotional state (Immordino-Yang 2007, Phye et al. 2007). Positive emotions can stimulate students’ motivation to learn, while negative emotions such as anxiety or fear may cause students to withdraw. Emotional states are difficult to measure, which creates a need for assessment tools to evaluate students’ emotional capabilities in higher education. In this paper, we draw upon focus group outcomes and life-history interviews (n=24) with college seniors in an Electrical & Computer Engineering department in the United States to develop an assessment tool for emotional balance. We conducted a content analysis of the focus group and interview data, using qualitative codes that correspond with our capabilities list, material resources, and conversion factors. We then selected four case studies that demonstrate the importance of emotional balance, which were reviewed by the research team using consensus coding techniques (Stemler 2019, Harry et al. 2005). These case studies reveal the complex intersections between “emotional balance” and other higher education capabilities. Emotional imbalance may be exacerbated by a lack of structural support for emotional wellbeing on campus. However, in some cases, students may find more emotional support in campus environments than they find at home, making the university a place where emotional resilience is fostered. From this qualitative data, we generated an assessment tool that can be adapted for use by higher education administration. The assessment tool includes a survey element for collecting responses from students, along with a structural analysis to understand whether adequate support exists to help students navigate moments of emotional distress. This research will help operationalize the capabilities approach to make it more easily adaptable to other universities.
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This content will become publicly available on March 4, 2026
Working towards emotionally responsive student support: an exploration of the emotions that surface when navigating undergraduate engineering education
Engineering education is brimming with obstacles and opportunities that evoke emotions in students. The purpose of this paper is to illuminate the emotions that surface when students in the United States discuss how they navigate engineering. We used a psychoevolutionary approach to emotion and conducted 26 semi-structured interviews at one institution with undergraduate engineering students. We analysed student interviews using a priori codes from an emotion wheel and emergent codes related to the context of their emotions. We found these relationships between emotions and their contexts: (1) an engineering course load and being marginalised in engineering are both emotionally uncomfortable; (2) peers and instructors can cause both comfortable and uncomfortable emotions; and (3) future career plans provide emotional comfort. To most effectively support undergraduate students, practitioners should be aware of these emotional realities so they can provide more emotionally responsive support to students.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1943811
- PAR ID:
- 10579269
- Publisher / Repository:
- Taylor & Francis
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- European Journal of Engineering Education
- ISSN:
- 0304-3797
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 23
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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