2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Student Perceptions of a Belonging Intervention

This empirical research full paper investigates student perceptions of an ecological belonging intervention that supports women and Black, Latiné, and Indigenous (BLI) students in an introductory engineering programming course. Women, as a whole, and BLI men and women students, remain underrepresented in engineering pathways (National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, 2023). Belonging interventions have been used to address academic equity gaps in STEM with general success, and some mixed results. This study uses a ~40-minute intervention in which students participate in five brief in-class activities that redefine typical college struggle as normal and temporary within a specific class context. The intervention seeks to establish a classroom norm that typical struggles with course materials are normal and surmountable with time and effort and not a signal that one doesn’t belong in engineering. These struggles might include time management, challenges of working in engineering teams, and learning programming; it is important to note that it does not address systematic biases or prejudices.

As part of an ongoing quasi-experimental study, we investigated student perceptions of the intervention via an online survey delivered near the end of the course. Specifically, we examined how these perceptions related to the efficacy of the intervention. The survey included responses from students in four treatment sections of the course (n = 479). Students were asked to recall the activity that occurred during the first week of class: one student selected the decoy response; 224 (47%) selected the correct response describing the intervention; five (1%) did not attend the class during the first week; 237 (49%) attended but could not remember the session topic; and 12 (3%) selected “prefer not to answer.” Of those that answered correctly, 149 (82%) found the activity at least somewhat helpful with 57% selecting somewhat useful, 22%) selecting useful; and 3% extremely useful. When asked if they would recommend the intervention be continued in future course iterations 90% (163 students) did so with 19 (10%) selecting they would not recommend (80 (44%) somewhat recommend; 70 (39%) recommend; and 13 (7%) strongly recommend continuing the intervention).

When dichotomized into those who found the activity useful or not and would recommend it or not, no significant differences in course grades emerged. Students who found the intervention useful had higher programming self-efficacy (PSE) on average, but the differences between groups were not significantly different (F(3, 221) = 1.87, p = .136). However, students who recommended continuing the intervention had significantly stronger (F(3, 221) = 3.63, p = .014) programming self-efficacy than their peers. In turn, PSE significantly and positively predicts course grades (F(1,464) = 97.08, p < .001, adjusted R2 = .17). These results indicate that students’ perceptions of the intervention shape how they make meaning of it and may provide ways to better tailor the intervention for customization in first-year engineering courses.

References
National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES). (2023). Diversity and STEM: Women, minorities, and persons with disabilities 2023 (Special Report NSF 23-315). National Science Foundation. https://ncses.nsf.gov/wmpd

Authors

Dr. Matthew Bahnson http://orcid.org/https://0000-0002-0134-0125 Purdue University at West Lafayette (COE) [biography]

Matthew Bahnson completed his Ph.D. in the Applied Social and Community Psychology program in at North Carolina State University. His previous training includes a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Northern Iowa and an M.A. in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago. Matthew’s research focuses on sociocultural inequality in engineering graduate education with the intention of increasing diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in STEM graduate education. He completed a postdoctoral appointment in engineering education with the Engineering Cognitive Research Laboratory with Dr. Catherin Berdanier at Pennsylvania State University. He is currently a Research Scientist at Purdue University with the STRIDE research group directed by Dr. Allison Godwin at Cornell University.
Eric Trevor McChesney http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7831-9642 University of Pittsburgh [biography]

Eric McChesney (he/him) is a Postdoctoral Scholar for Psychosocial Interventions at Scale with the Learning Research and Development center at the University of Pittsburgh. His work focuses on the development of robust, transferrable psychosocial interventions that improve the outcomes of and environments experienced by women, people of color, and other historically-marginalized students pursuing degrees in Science, Engineering, Mathematics, and Technology (STEM). A further strand of his research examines the development of interdisciplinarity in the sciences and works to define the mechanisms by which it is formed, identify the contexts conducive to its flourishing, and develop the educational experiences that accelerate its development.
Dr. Allison Godwin http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0741-3356 Cornell University [biography]

Allison Godwin, Ph.D. is the Dr. G. Stephen Irwin '67, '68 Professor in Engineering Education Research (Associate Professor) in the Robert Frederick Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Cornell University. She is also the Associate Director of the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility and a McCormick Teaching Excellence Institute Research Fellow. Her research focuses on how identity, among other affective factors, influences diverse groups of students to choose engineering and persist in engineering. She also studies how different experiences within the practice and culture of engineering foster or hinder belonging, motivation, and identity development. Dr. Godwin graduated from Clemson University with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Ph.D. in Engineering and Science Education. Her research earned her a National Science Foundation CAREER Award focused on characterizing latent diversity, which includes diverse attitudes, mindsets, and approaches to learning to understand engineering students’ identity development. She has won several awards for her research including the 2021 Chemical Engineering Education William H. Corcoran Award, 2022 American Educational Research Association Education in the Professions (Division I) 2021-2022 Outstanding Research Publication Award, and the 2023 AIChE Excellence in Engineering Education Research Award.
Dr. Christian D Schunn University of Pittsburgh [biography]

Dr. Christian D. Schunn is a professor of Psychology, Intelligent Systems, and Learning Sciences and Policy at the University of Pittsburgh. He is also a senior scientist at the Learning Research and Development Center. He received his Ph.D. in Psycholo
Dr. Linda DeAngelo http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8508-5909 University of Pittsburgh [biography]

Linda DeAngelo is Associate Professor of Higher Education in the School of Education and Director of Graduate Studies with a secondary faculty appointment in the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. DeAngelo studies social stratification, investigating how social inequities are produced, maintained, and interrupted. Currently her scholarship focuses on access to and engagement in faculty mentorship, the pathway into and through graduate education, and gender and race in engineering.

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