2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The Role of Practicing Engineers in Recognizing Students’ Identities

How students believe others see or recognize them as engineers influences how they take on that disciplinary role identity. Presently, practicing engineers as sources of recognition are not typically included in current, first-year focused, engineering identity work as this group may not emerge until later in students’ programs. This study begins to address this omission by examining how students experienced recognition from industry professionals over a four-year undergraduate program with specific considerations as to how recognition was accessed and interpreted with respect to time.

This paper focuses on the qualitative results of a mixed-methods project at a large, western land-grant university. This phenomenologically guided study explores the experiences of a cohort of 30 undergraduate engineering students enrolled in a four-year-long cohort program. Directed content and thematic analysis were used to identify codes and develop themes that identify the prevalence of recognition from engineers in industry and how that recognition was interpreted as valuable or meaningful to undergraduate engineering students with respect to time.

Results indicated that while the participants considered practicing engineers to be meaningful sources of engineers due to their knowledge of engineering, industry professionals were often hard to access. Most participants interacted with practicing engineers via internships, which they typically did not start until their second or third year. However, even when participants had access to this group early in their engineering programs, the participants did not find recognition from this group to be meaningful until they had gained enough confidence in their own abilities to believe that recognition from this group was warranted and accurate. These findings highlight recognition from practicing engineers as something to consider when engaging in developmental identity research beyond the first year. The results of this study address calls for longitudinal identity work and further clarify what kind of recognition is valuable or meaningful to students in relation to where they are in their program. By better understanding the value and prevalence of recognition from practicing engineers, we can design educational environments and high-impact practices that support engineering identity development.

Authors

Dr. Kelsey Scalaro Cornell University [biography]

Kelsey is a postdoctoral scholar with the STRIDE group at Cornell University. She recently graduated with PhD in Engineering Education from the University of Nevada, Reno. She has a BS and MS in mechanical engineering and worked in the aerospace industry for four years before returning to academia to complete her doctoral degree. Her research focuses on undergraduate engineering identity and is interested in exploring how it can be equitably supported through pedagogical practices.
Dr. Indira Chatterjee University of Nevada, Reno [biography]

Indira Chatterjee received her M.S. in Physics from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio in 1977 and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah in 1981. Indira is Interim Dean of Engineering and Professor of Electrical and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno. She has won many awards including Foundation Professor, Tibbitts University Distinguished Teacher Award, the Hoeper Award for Excellence in Teaching and Advising, Society of Women Engineers Region A Service
Award, the IEEE Student Section Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Nevada Women’s Fund ”Women
of Achievement” award and the Silver Compass Award for Extraordinary Commitment to Students. She
has had over 7 million research funding in Bioelectromagnetics and engineering education. She has served
as research mentor to postdoctoral fellows and many graduate students, and most recently served as mentor in the ASEE Minority Mentorship program.
Dr. Ann-Marie Vollstedt University of Nevada, Reno [biography]

Ann-Marie Vollstedt is a teaching associate professor for the College of Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR). Dr. Vollstedt completed her dissertation at UNR, which focused on exploring the use of statistical process control methods to assess course changes in order to increase student learning in engineering. Dr. Vollstedt teaches courses in engineering design as well as statics and runs the Engineering Freshmen Intensive Training Program. She is the recipient of the Paul and Judy Bible Teaching Excellence Award, F. Donald Tibbitt's Distinguished Teaching Award, The Nevada Women's Fun Woman of Achievement Award, and the UNR College of Engineering Excellence Award.
Dr. Adam Kirn http://orcid.org/https://0000-0001-6344-5072 University of Nevada, Reno [biography]

Adam Kirn is an Associate Professor of Engineering Education at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 22, 2025, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 25, 2025