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Engineering identity is an attractive lens being used by engineering education researchers to help understand the factors contributing to student retention and persistence in engineering. However, few studies have linked pedagogical approaches for developing an identity to their impact on engineering identity development. This research paper investigates the difference in students’ engineering identity, engineering performance/competence, engineering interest, recognition in engineering, and affect towards six professional engineering practices in two difference engineering departments: a traditional program that implicitly supports engineering identity formation and a non-traditional program that explicitly supports engineering identity formation. Survey data was collected from a total of 184 students (153 from the traditional department and 31 from the non-traditional department). Using independent samples t-tests, results show that engineering identity was higher for students in the traditional department than for students in the non-traditional department. However, students in the non-traditional department showed statistically significantly higher levels of collaboration compared to the traditional department. This work contributes to the ongoing conversation about engineering identity development by beginning to explore the pedagogical approaches that impact students’ engineering attitudes. Implications of results are discussed. 

Contribution: This study explores the factors contributing to the development of engineering identity in Latinx students at two institutions. A better understanding of these factors will support the development of more inclusive engineering education environments and experiences. Background: Persistence of Latinx engineering students is of particular interest due to their underrepresentation in the field. Identity is a lens for understanding student persistence, but Latinx students are underrepresented in prior engineering identity studies. This study seeks to identify the unique factors, academic and professional, that contribute to engineering identity development, and potential means for supporting the persistence of Latinx engineers. Research Questions: (1) What academic and professional affect factors predict engineering identity development of Latinx students? and (2) What role does the institution play in Latinx students’ engineering identity development? Methodology: A mixed-methods approach was used to measure engineering identity based on a framework incorporating both academic and professional affect elements. Regression analyses were conducted on 892 responses to an online survey from Latinx engineering students, with additional insight from interviews with ten Latinx engineering students. Findings: Six of the nine factors analyzed (performance/competence, interest, recognition, analysis, framing and solving problems, and tinkering) were significant predictors of Latinx students' engineering identity, as were institution, gender, and having a parent with an engineering degree. Engineering identity was higher for Latinx students at the Hispanic Serving Institution, but none of the interaction terms were significant, so the relationship between these factors and engineering identity is similar at each institution. 

Identity, or how people choose to define themselves, is gaining traction as an explanation for who pursues and persists in engineering. A number of quantitative studies have developed scales for predicting engineering identity in undergraduate students. However, the outcome measure of identity is sometimes based on a single item. In this paper, we present the results of a new two-item scale. The scale is adapted from an existing measure of identification with an organization that was developed by Bergami and Bagozzi [1] and refined by Bartel [2]. The measure focuses on the “cognitive (i.e., self-categorization) component of identification” (p. 556), and has been found to have high convergent validity with another, rigorous measure of identification with an organization or other entity created by Mael and Ashforth [3]. This measure utilizes one primarily visual and one verbal item to assess the extent to which an individual cognitively categorizes himself or herself as an engineer. The scale was administered to 1528 engineering undergraduate students during the 2016-2017 academic year. Internal consistency of the new engineering identity scale, as measured by Cronbach’s alpha, is 0.84. This new scale is an important step toward refining quantitative measures of, and the study of, engineering identity development in undergraduate students and other populations. 

Identity, or how people choose to define themselves, is emerging as an attractive explanation for who persists in engineering. Many studies of engineering identity build off of prior work in math and science identity, emphasizing the academic aspects of engineering. However, affect towards professional practice is also central to engineering identity development. This paper describes the methods used to create a new survey measure of individuals’ affect toward elements of engineering practice. We followed the item generation, refinement, and instrument validation steps required for psychometric validation of a new survey measure. We generated items deductively using the literature on engineering professional skills and practice and inductively based on interviews with practicing engineers, engineering graduate students, and engineering undergraduate students. We blended the inductively and deductively derived item lists to create a list of initial items for the measure. We circulated this list of items to a set of engineering and professional identity experts to establish face validity and made modifications based on their feedback. The final list included 34 items. These 34 items were administered in a questionnaire survey in the fall of 2016 to 1465 engineering undergraduates in three majors at two institutions. We conducted an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and established internal consistency using Cronbach’s alpha on a subset of the analytical sample data (n=384). The resulting factors fit our a priori assumption of the factors theorized to characterize affect towards engineering professional practice. Using the remaining data (n=904), we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis on the reduced set of items resulting from EFA. The results indicate an emergent factor structure for affect towards elements of engineering practice. 

Identity, or how people choose to define themselves, is emerging as an explanation for who pursues and persists in engineering. Recent developments in the study of engineering identity, including studies of math and science identity, tend to emphasize the academic aspects of engineering without considering aspects of professional practice central to the development of an engineering identity. This paper outlines the methods used to create a new survey measure: affect toward elements of engineering practice. We followed the item generation, refinement, and instrument validation steps required for psychometric validation of a new survey measure. Through this process a final list of 34 items was administered in a survey in the fall of 2016 to engineering undergraduates. We conducted an exploratory factor analysis and established internal consistency using Cronbach’s alpha on a subset of the data sample (n=384). The resulting factors reflect key elements of affect towards engineering professional practice.