2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The purpose of this work-in-progress research paper is to determine the transferability of a previously developed neurodivergent codebook using social media content fromTikTok. Neurodiversity is a newer paradigm within the engineering education community that reframes disability from a deficit approach to a celebration of differences and acceptance of self-determination. Researchers and educators can leverage the neurodiversity paradigm to integrate accessible pedagogical practices that improve learning for all students. However, few scholars have published what it means to be neurodivergent from neurodivergent perspectives and language. We live in a unique time where neurodivergent people find community on social media and share their experiences to connect with other neurodivergent people. Because this community is growing, community members interact with one another to refine the language they use to describe their experience and are moving away from the deficit framing normalized by society.

To begin integrating neurodivergent perspectives and community language into research, we developed a neurodivergent codebook by analyzing the social media platform TikTok over the summer of 2022. TikTok is a growing, video-based social media platform where users create short video clips that describe or show their experiences as a form of expression and has unique community interaction. Using a predetermined inclusion criteria (e.g., publicly available, experiences shared), two neurodivergent researchers downloaded two hundred TikToks by searching hashtags such as #neurodivergent, #neurodivergentTikTok, #adhd, and #actuallyAutistic. The neurodivergent researchers watched the TikToks before downloading them to ensure they met the inclusion criteria. TikToks were then qualitatively coded, resulting in over one hundred nuanced codes that characterize being neurodivergent. This codebook gives us useful terminology that can be used to refer to neurodivergent individuals appropriately in engineering education. Example codes include stim, rejection sensitivity disorder, masking, anxiety, boundaries, and impulsivity. In this paper, we begin to determine the transferability of this neurodivergent codebook as the neurodivergent community language changes over time and social context. By determining the transferability of our neurodivergent codebook, we can use the terms in future engineering education research that explores neurodivergent engineering student experiences.