2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

In this research paper, we present a study that leverages semi-structured interviews and an inductive thematic analysis to explore the engineering education experiences of neurodiverse students who identify as disabled. In this work, recruited students discussed non-apparent disabilities impacting learning, mental health, development, or cognition. Previous research on student-professor interactions suggests that a lack of understanding and accommodation from engineering professors contributes to mental health challenges of students (Beddoes and Danowitz, 2022). Simultaneously, research indicates that faculty are looking for support to improve the experiences of their disabled students (Love et. al, 2014). With recent statistics indicating that approximately one in five students have at least one disability (American College Health Association, 2022), it is increasingly important to attend to how disabled students experience engineering education and identify ways to improve those experiences. Existing studies typically focus on the personal, and internal challenges these students face. By contrast, this work focuses on the external barriers to success students face in the classroom. We asked three research questions, focusing on students’ experiences within their courses: (1) What are common challenges students with non-apparent disabilities face in engineering classrooms? (2) What elements of a classroom (e.g., physical set-up, course management, peer interaction) are most associated with the challenges students face? And (3) What proactive strategies have instructors used that students with non-apparent disabilities recognize as beneficial to their experience?

The results detailed in this paper represent the experiences of six undergraduate engineering students with a variety of cognitive and emotional disabilities. The interviewed students experienced challenges managing the impact of their NADs while taking a full engineering course load resulting in lost time and energy, navigating disclosure considerations concerning completing coursework with or without accommodations, and interacting with professors and classmates. In addition to coding for challenges, student experiences were subcoded to capture the different needs and preferences of students with cognitive and emotional disabilities regarding coursework and course structure. Positive and negative perceptions of long-term projects, group work, quizzes/exams, independent assignments, and the frequency of assignments were also captured in our analysis. Preliminary themes about the qualities of professors that make them be perceived as supportive of students with NADs were also captured in our exploratory study.

Overall, this study presents an initial set of themes that capture the experiences of students with cognitive or emotional NADs in engineering courses. Initial results suggest that students watch for indirect, sometimes nonverbal cues from professors in class which may indicate an instructor’s willingness to support students with NADs. Being aware of what these cues are and making a conscious, proactive effort to voice support for academic accommodations could have a positive impact on students’ comfort in the classroom. The diversity of our six students’ experiences highlights the need for further exploration in this area of research while also pointing to some concrete actions that engineering instructors can take to make their classrooms more supportive of students with NADs.