2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Emotion is an integral part of teaching and learning. Emotion is intertwined with students’ responses to topics, reactions to experiences in the classroom, and interactions with peers and faculty members. However, emotion is under-researched in the context of engineering education. This research paper explores civil and architectural engineering students’ emotions related to their ethical and societal responsibility. This research is part of a larger study in Belgium and England that examines students’ conceptualization of their societal responsibility and the factors inside and outside the classroom that shape it. The broader project employs a constructivist grounded theory approach and interviews with engineering students at one university in each of these two countries. Preliminary analysis of the interview data indicated the role of emotion in students’ understanding of their future responsibility as an engineer. The present study probes this emergent finding with a social constructionist approach, which describes the theoretical perspective that emotions are a sociocultural experience and are situated rather than a purely individual and internal phenomenon.

Data collection is ongoing, and a total of 10 semi-structured interviews have been conducted in Belgium and England. The present paper examines the emotions that students express related to their future responsibility as an engineer, which include fear, anxiety, stress, and pressure. The analysis also explores the sociocultural factors that contribute to these emotional responses, such as the way the engineering profession is portrayed, the theoretical nature of engineering education, and the limited visibility of social and ethical issues in the curriculum. The implications of this research are a contribution to the growing conversation around emotion in engineering education, including how emotions can be socially constructed and affect students’ perspectives on their future responsibility as engineers.