2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Mental health and wellness in engineering education is an under-studied area of critical importance. Environments that promote mental health and wellness likely have long-term, positive, and impactful benefits. However, the culture of engineering higher education has been described as a culture of stress where engineering students experience higher stress, lower mental health, and lower retention rates when compared to students in other disciplines [1-3]. This culture of stress is detrimental to mental health and wellbeing and is thus a critical space for change efforts. To address this challenge, this study asks: “How can we dismantle a culture of high stress in engineering and instead foster a culture that promotes wellbeing?”

To answer this question, the presented project uses a mixed-methods approach to examine the time-evolution of engineering stress culture, educators' perceptions of the normalization of this stress culture, and resources that support a culture of well-being. Prior work includes the development of a stress culture measure [4] and student interview analysis [5]. The project has recently focused on 1) a longitudinal survey of student experiences with the engineering stress culture that includes confirmatory validation of a survey instrument developed as part of this project around engineering stress culture; 2) faculty, staff, and student interviews to elucidate survey findings; and 3) creating a virtual community to support practitioners, collaboratively solve problems, and envision new futures around dismantling this culture of high stress.

This paper will discuss a more in-depth overview of the current state of the project as well as preliminary data from the longitudinal survey and faculty interviews. This paper will also detail the development and growth experienced by the mental health and wellness virtual community. The virtual community includes over 80 members from the wider engineering community with tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty positions, graduate and undergraduate students, postdoctoral scholars, staff, and engineering industry personnel. Such a community promises the facilitation of communication between participants with differing levels of influence and access to resources, which is a key component of change efforts. This virtual community meets monthly and is supplemented by an asynchronous messaging platform and website to disseminate relevant information. The monthly meetings have been led by a variety of interested community members, with continuing access for new members to join.

Overall, this project seeks to create lasting change by contributing to the engineering education community’s understanding of possible ways of dismantling the engineering stress culture and fostering a culture that promotes wellbeing.

References
[1] Godfrey, E., & Parker, L. (2010). Mapping the cultural landscape in engineering
education. Journal of Engineering Education, 99(1), 5–22.
[2] Authors, 2021.
[3] Perkins, H., Gesun, J., Scheidt, M., Major, J., Chen, J., Berger, E., & Godwin, A. (2021). Holistic wellbeing and belonging: attempting to untangle stress and wellness in their impact
on sense of community in engineering. International Journal of Community Well-Being, 4(4),
549-580.
[4] Authors, 2022.
[5] Authors, 2021.