2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Board 338: Mental Health in Engineering Education Before, During, and After COVID-19 Related Disruptions

Presented at NSF Grantees Poster Session

This paper summarizes the results of our NSF funded longitudinal study on mental health in engineering education. Survey instruments were used to measure the prevalence of several mental health conditions in engineering students at 8 partner institutions as they progressed through their engineering programs. This data collection began in Fall 2019, shortly before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and continued into 2021. Our results, recapitulated here, provide a unique insight into the state of mental health in engineering education during “normal times,” how it changed and worsened during the early stages of the pandemic, and how and to what extent mental health has since recovered to pre-pandemic levels.

Authors

Dr. Andrew Danowitz http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4842-2005 California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo [biography]

Andrew Danowitz received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 2014, and is currently an Associate Professor of Computer Engineering at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. His research interests involve student mental health and accessibility in engineering education. He is currently the Treasurer of the ASEE Pacific Southwest Division.
Dr. Kacey Beddoes San Jose State University [biography]

Kacey Beddoes is the Assistant Dean for Systemic Equity and Engagement for the College of Engineering and Architecture at Washington State University. She holds a Ph.D. in Science and Technology Studies (STS) from Virginia Tech and serves as Managing Editor for Engineering Studies and Deputy Editor for the Australasian Journal of Engineering Education.

Download paper (733 KB)

Are you a researcher? Would you like to cite this paper? Visit the ASEE document repository at peer.asee.org for more tools and easy citations.

» Download paper

« View session