2025 Collaborative Network for Engineering & Computing Diversity (CoNECD)

This research paper investigates the connection between engineering students’ resource access and their development of engineering identity and belonging. Belonging and engineering identity are integral components of engineering student success. Belonging is identified as the most important factor of student success and is tied to student outcomes such as academics, retention, and more. Engineering identity, one’s perception that they are the “kind of person” who does engineering informs belonging development. Specifically, students who feel like they can do engineering and are engineers are more likely to feel like they belong in engineering itself. Literature has described the instrumental role that recognition from important others has in developing engineering identity.

In my prior work, I identified that engineering student resource access may be connected to belonging development. Low-income student participants suggested that when they did not have access to certain resources, they questioned whether they belonged in the engineering spaces they were in. These connections were mostly identified as emotional, but some were also physical or social. I wondered whether these connections might exist across students of all backgrounds and, given connections between engineering identity and belonging, also wondered whether connections could be found across engineering identity development too.

I explored connections between physical, social, and emotional resource access and engineering identity development. Connections were explored using linear regression while controlling for intersectional demographics. My data comes from a pilot study (n=56) examining students’ physical, social, and emotional resource access in engineering. This survey included physical, social, and emotional resource access questions as well as measures of engineering identity; performance/competence, interest, and recognition, created by Godwin (2016). I also investigated connections to engineering belonging as they are correlated to engineering identity measures. Intersectional demographics were obtained through my survey using an inclusive survey approach described by Fernandez et al. (2016). My use of linear regression included use of backward deletion. Following the completed regression, I calculated effect sizes.

While specific resources were individually tied to identity development, I found that specific groupings of resources were tied to specific development of belonging and engineering identity sub-constructs. Performance/Competence was not tied to any specific resource grouping in this study. Belonging and recognition, however, were predicted by access to basic needs including access to a computer and heat, they were also predicted by access to discussions about personal and educational matters with family and teachers that were free of tension and ridicule. Finally, interest was predicted by support of academic matters related to things studied in class.

I recognized the importance of emotional resources in my past work, my research group has also identified this importance in other parallel studies. Recognition of one as an engineer comes best from others the person identifies as important to them. In our work, perceptions of importance are tied to feelings of genuineness, authenticity, and care. We hypothesize that access to genuine, supportive home and school members leads to stronger development of engineering identity and belonging. Our future work will study these connections further.