2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This Complete Research paper describes the impacts of a service-learning litter pickup project on engineering identity in the first year. Service-learning projects have been shown to increase student learning and improve student attitudes toward academics and community engagement. It was hypothesized that service learning may also improve students’ engineering identity, as measured by recognition, interest, and performance indicators. Students were surveyed before, immediately after, and 10 months after a litter pickup service-learning project that was incorporated into a required first-year computing course. All engineering identity constructs were scored highly (median above 4 on a 0–6 scale), regardless of the survey time point. There was a significant improvement in the construction of recognition (p=0.003), but no significant change in interest (p=0.184), performance (p=0.442), or overall engineering identity (p=0.177). Engineering identity constructs were significantly different across gender and major, but not across other demographics, which included race and first-generation status. Identity construct scores decreased from the first to the second year, though not statistically significant. Results show the service-learning project had a positive impact on student engineering identity in the first year, but that further study is needed to maintain and improve students’ perception of engineering identity between the first and second years.