2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This practice paper explores the impact of an identity-based approach to introductory engineering leadership instruction. This paper contributes to the LEAD Division Design strategic initiative by introducing a leadership instructional activity that easily integrates with existing curricula; it furthermore contributes to the Assessment strategic initiative by implementing an identity growth measure and reporting the empirical results. More specifically, this research strives to understand the impact of adopting an identity-based approach to students’ leader identity development and to their understanding of engineering leadership.

The growing perception of the engineering profession as a sociotechnical discipline has provided rich soil to cultivate leadership within a professional context. While skill- and behavior-based approaches are ubiquitous in engineering leadership programs, there is increasing interest in using more developmental approaches to cultivate leadership. One promising framework that has emerged is identity, as its dynamic, multi-faceted and individual developmental characteristics are well-suited to describe and to support leadership development.

This study continues the work of previously published contributions that have adopted the identity framework to understand engineering leadership development amongst college students. While existing research has proposed an identity-based instructional approach (reflexive instruction), the literature does not clarify precisely how this approach might be operationalized, let alone does it quantitatively measure the impact of such instruction.

The primary purpose of the practice paper is to present an activity that models reflexive instruction in engineering leadership. The activity being studied consists of an introduction into several leadership styles, along with a teamwork activity that leveraged teaming and self-reflective learning. Finally, the initial design goals required an activity that was modular, minimally invasive, relevant, and accessible: this enables scaling the activity to a more widespread audience.

In addition, this paper summarizes the impact of reflexive instruction. Undergraduate student participants were surveyed on their leader identity and engineering leadership construct. Self-reported retrospective surveys were analyzed to measure instructional impact. Two research questions drove the regression-based analysis: Does reflexive instruction about engineering leadership influence leader identity; and does it influence engineering leadership construct?

Findings from a multi-institution implementation of this activity indicated both that leader identity increased, and that leader concept shifted over the timeframe of the intervention. These findings suggest that students respond well to an identity-based leadership approach. This has implications for research, as it contributes to our understanding of how students may be affected by identity-based initiatives. More relevantly, this has implications for practice, as it models one approach to supporting engineering leadership growth, with empirical support for its impact. This may hold particular importance to LEAD Division members as an empirically grounded activity that can be integrated with a wide variety of programs at scale.