2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The study in this empirical research brief investigates undergraduate students’ perceptions of engineering as a career. Guided by theory on developing engineering perceptions [1], [2] and the 2024 Mindset Report’s challenge to create pathways “toward professional practice, graduate school, and challenges not yet known” [3, p. 39], we compare first- and third-year student perceptions of important engineering skills, work activities, and as a broader field. Research has shown that students’ perceptions of engineering careers differs from the perspectives of professional engineers [4], [5]. Undergraduates’ accurate understanding of engineering is an essential component of retaining students in engineering programs and careers, which benefits both the individuals and the economy [6]. This brief reviews theory and literature that describes the gap between perceptions during engineering education and practice, strategies found to lessen the gap, then describes the current study aimed at measuring student perceptions of engineering careers.

This pre/post study begins by surveying first-year pre-engineering and third-year engineering students to determine how well they can identify important engineering skills and work activities from the O*NET 29.0 database. This purposive dual sample (first-year n = 73, third-year n = 56) allows between-group analyses and within-group mean differences from pre- to post-semester. Deductive coding (based on [7]) and inductive thematic analyses of participants’ conceptualizations of engineering will add depth to the quantitative analyses. Through analyzing these data, we address the following questions:
1. How accurate are first-year pre-engineering and third-year engineering students’ identification of important engineering skills and work activities?
2. Are third-year students better at identifying important engineering skills and work activities than first year students?
3. How do first- and third-year students describe their perceptions of engineering as a field?
4. Do these accuracies and perceptions change from the beginning to the end of a semester-long engineering course?

Initial findings from the pre-survey indicate that both first- and third-year students were more accurate in identifying important engineering skills than work activities. In comparison to professionals’ ratings, first-year students agreed with important engineering skills 70% and work activities 59% of the time. Third-year students identified the important skills 70% and work activities 65% of the time. When comparing groups on the pre-survey, there was no difference between first- and third-year students on identifying skills (t(126)=.59, p=.28), but third-year students were significantly more accurate at identifying work activities (t(125)=-3.18, p<.001) with a medium effect, d=.57.

Deductive analysis of students’ perceptions of engineering revealed that the three main conceptions of mediator (integrating math and science), designer/tinkerer (inventor, innovator, problem-solver), and 21st century engineering (professional service to society) were present in participants’ responses, similarly to [7]. First- and third-year students overwhelmingly held a designer conceptualization, with many also mentioning applied math and science. This suggests potential for advancing these perceptions toward 21st century conceptualizations of engineering, which we will explore post-semester. Inductive findings from pre- and post- qualitative analyses will be highlighted in the paper and presentation. The full research brief will also include a detailed theoretical framework, instrumentation and O*NET comparison, results tables, and findings contextualized in previous studies.