2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This Work-in-Progress paper presents student-driven research into the experiences of neurodivergent learners in Engineering and Computing majors at an R1 institution in the southeastern United States. This work emerged from an undergraduate student club focused on connecting and supporting neurodivergent learners. In the course, we engage neurotypical and neurodivergent students in collaborative research based on their interests and goals. Situated in a for-credit class that provides the structure for undergraduate research experiences, this ongoing investigation into neurodiversity allows student researchers to pursue individual topics of interest related to the central theme of neurodivergent learners. During the first semester of this project, Fall 2023, the twenty-two undergraduate researchers in the course contributed to the design and implementation of a general survey for any participant with institutional affiliation. The survey requests basic information about how participants self-identify and experience their neurodiversity at an institution of higher education, with overt requests recruiting participants to participate in future research into focused phenomena determined by undergraduate researchers. Notably, questions used to group participants provide the opportunity to select data from individuals with similar academic backgrounds and experiences to comparatively investigate students in STEM majors, particularly Engineering and Computing students. As the survey is still open for participation until the end of the Fall 2023 semester, statistical and thematic analyses still need to be completed; however, we have been able to use early data to spur discussion among researchers about emergent findings. The initial intent of this line of inquiry into neurodiversity in Engineering and Computing is to better understand the experiences of neurodivergent learners in comparison and contrast to their peers in non-STEM majors to develop survey and interview protocols focused on neurodiversity in STEM for future study. In this WIP paper, we present findings from the general survey along with the research plan and protocols created from the survey results for future work.