2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This work in progress paper explores the ways in which emotions and learning intersect in engineering education contexts as self-reported by undergraduate students. Recent literature in the learning sciences positions affect and motivation as epistemic. In other words, the learning that undergraduate students in engineering education engage in is an inherently emotional, or affective, process. In this study, we designed a semi-structured interview protocol to explore undergraduate students’ perceptions of emotion in their engineering education. We interviewed twenty-one mechanical and human factors engineering undergraduate students at a private university in the northeastern United States, transcribed interview recordings and conducted a qualitative thematic analysis of interview data to address the research question, In what ways do emotions and learning intersect within engineering education contexts? Our data analysis characterizes a range of emotional configurations that undergraduate students experience in four contexts specific to their engineering education. Drawing from the emotion in/as sociocultural practice perspective, we conceptualize emotional configurations as the intersection between emotion, sense-making, and sociocultural practices. These findings begin to demonstrate that learning to process emotions is an integral part of learning to do engineering and shapes future learning opportunities within engineering education. These findings have implications for understanding how undergraduate students perceive the role of emotions in their engineering education and how educators can support undergraduate students as they experience, express, and regulate these emotions. Future work will explore how emotional configurations differ across contexts, grade levels, and participant identities within engineering education.