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Several recent studies have documented high rates of mental health struggles among engineering students [1]–[4]. To date, however, studies of mental health in engineering have been limited to primarily quantitative surveys. This paper advances the research landscape by presenting findings from an interview study with current and former engineering students. The interview data can help explain quantitative findings from previous studies and provide deeper insights into relationships between engineering culture and mental health. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with fourteen undergraduate students from five universities in four different states in the United States. Through the interviews, we identified seven specific features of engineering and engineering education that undermined students’ mental health. Furthermore, our analysis identifies not only what aspects of engineering education undermine mental health but also explains how they do so. While the interviews were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic in fall of 2020, the experiences reported by students were primarily pre-pandemic experiences, and are not specific to pandemic conditions. In addition to elucidating the seven aspects presented in the Findings, one aim in identifying and discussing these features is to challenge tacit or taken-for-granted notions that these aspects of engineering education are given, necessary, unchangeable, or desirable. Shedding light on the ways in which the features identified in this paper impact students can help engineering educators, administrators, and other students critically reflect on how their role in perpetuating these characteristics affects students and the engineering education system as a whole.
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This content will become publicly available on February 18, 2026
Innovative Approaches to CS Education Research that Enable All Students' Success
What does it mean to conduct computer science education research in a manner that ensures that the evidence produced is high quality and benefits a wide variety of students? One can pour over various guides from institutions like What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) and the American Psychology Association (APA). However, what many standards fail to include is a holistic perspective of conducting education research, including guidelines for ensuring that the aggregated data presented represents the student population that the research will ultimately serve. In this panel, we tackle both and explore approaches that have been used in other education research fields as well as those appropriate to CS education research that can be leveraged to ensure that all students' needs, experiences, cultures, identities, and voices are captured and presented in our research.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2122212
- PAR ID:
- 10592030
- Publisher / Repository:
- ACM
- Date Published:
- ISBN:
- 9798400705328
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1701 to 1702
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Pittsburgh PA USA
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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