2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Introductory engineering courses shape college students’ college expectations, learning profiles, motivation, and ways in which they see themselves as the kind of person who can do engineering (engineering role identity). In particular, recognition beliefs—feeling that meaningful others to students (e.g., peers, faculty, TAs, etc.) see them as engineers—have been found to be the most important component of identity development in engineering for first- and second-year students. While much work has been done to link classroom experiences to engineering identity development, fewer studies have investigated course redesign as an intervention to support these outcomes. Often, course redesigns focus on one aspect of the course—content (what is taught), pedagogy (how it is taught), and assessment (how learning is assessed). This work describes the impact of a course redesign guided by engineering role identity and goal orientation (motivation) theories. The course is an elective introduction to chemical and biomolecular engineering that engages teaching through food to connect to students’ everyday lives (content), provides hands-on inquiry- and design-based opportunities in an accessible and safe way (pedagogy), and leverages alternative assessments.

This mixed methods study evaluates the effects of a pilot of this redesigned introductory chemical engineering course on engineering role identity with an emphasis on recognition. The course was taught at a private university in the Northeast in Fall 2023 with 48 students enrolled. Pre- and post-course survey measures of recognition and self-report multi-select demographic measures were gathered from 42 students. Additionally, all students were invited to participate in semi-structured interviews, and six participated. The study was approved by the institution's IRB. The quantitative data were analyzed with paired t-tests, and the qualitative data were themed via an open first round of coding and an axial second round of coding to reach a consensus with the team. Finally, the data were triangulated to understand how the course structure and environment shaped students’ recognition beliefs.

Recognition beliefs increased by 20% for the entire class by the conclusion of the course, and women had almost two times the increase in recognition than men. The qualitative results indicate that students felt recognized from several different sources throughout the course. Most students discussed recognition from their peers or engineering faculty in the context of high-value assessments such as the course exam or the course final project. Some students also discussed “negative” recognition from peers outside of the classroom due to stigmas associated with chemical engineering. Mixing these qualitative and quantitative data highlights some key sources of recognition for students in an introductory engineering course and provides options for instructors who wish to better promote engineering identity development.