2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Why Would You Ask Me about Engineering Culture and Belonging? Introducing Social Science Prompts into Engineering Surveys

Presented at Identity Formation and Engineering Cultures

What happens when researchers introduce socially theorized concepts like “culture” into engineering surveys as data generation prompts? While it is common for us to use social science theories to frame our analyses, it is less common for us to ask engineering students and practitioners to make sense of them through electronically administered surveys. In this paper, we examine 1198 open-ended responses to two items on a Canadian engineering career path survey: Q65: What aspects of engineering culture make you feel like you belong? and Q66: What aspects of engineering culture cause you to question your belonging? In addition to identifying specific factors that enhanced and constrained participants’ sense of belonging in the profession, we observed three distinct ways of responding to our culture prompt: engage (14%), ignore (54%), and backlash (8%). When we disaggregated these findings by an intersectional gender/race category, we found that white men were over- represented in “backlash” responses (11%), racialized men and women (76% RM, 71% RW) were over- represented in the “ignore” responses, and racialized and white women (23% RW, 20% WW) were over- represented in the “engage” responses. We use these findings to generate a justice-based argument for including social science prompts in engineering education research. Our position contrasts with positivist norms about minimizing response bias. When we minimize the ambiguity of survey prompts, we adopt a standard set by the white, male majority, leaving dominant ideology intact. In contrast, when we integrate social science concepts into our survey, we provide an opening for the “subaltern” to speak.

Authors

Dr. Cindy Rottmann http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3291-095X University of Toronto [biography]

Cindy Rottmann is the Associate Director of Research at the Troost Institute for Leadership Education in Engineering and an Assistant Professor of Engineering Education (ISTEP) at the University of Toronto. Her research interests include engineering leadership, social justice, and equity in engineering education and engineers' professional practice.
Ms. Dimpho Radebe University of Toronto [biography]

Dimpho Radebe is a PhD student in Engineering Education at the University of Toronto. Her research interests include engineering culture, engineering careers in the public sector, and ethics and equity in STEM. Dimpho has several years of experience in th
Dr. Emily Moore P.Eng. University of Toronto [biography]

Emily Moore is the Director of the Troost Institute for Leadership Education in Engineering (Troost ILead) at the University of Toronto. Emily spent 20 years as a professional engineer, first as an R&D engineer in a Fortune 500 company, and then leading
Dr. Andrea Chan University of Toronto [biography]

Andrea Chan is a Senior Research Associate at the Troost Institute for Leadership Education in Engineering | University of Toronto
Ms. Emily Macdonald-Roach University of Toronto [biography]

Emily Macdonald-Roach is an MASc student in Engineering Education at the University of Toronto. Her research interests include engineering identity formation, engineering culture, and equity, diversity, and inclusion in engineering career paths.
Ms. Saskia van Beers University of Toronto [biography]

Saskia van Beers (she/her) is a MASc. student in Engineering Education at the University of Toronto. She holds a BASc in Engineering Science from the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on understanding how Canadian engineers reflect on the impact that their social location has had on their career.
Sasha-Ann Eleanor Nixon University of Toronto

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