2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Student success and persistence in an engineering program goes beyond academic knowledge and proficiency. Previous studies have shown that many factors, including sense of belonging and grit, contribute to student performance and retention in STEM fields [1-9]. Sense of belonging refers to the belief that one fits in and belongs, and grit is described as perseverance and passion for long term goals.
At [our university], an NSF S-STEM program centered around scholarship and mentorship was developed to support our limited-income (LI) students. Scholarships are awarded to selected students in their second term, renewable for up to 6 additional semesters. Each scholar is paired with a faculty mentor, following a one-to-one mentoring model. In addition, each cohort of scholars is matched with a small group of peer mentors and alumni mentors. Cohort activities include a mix of social events and professional workshops to build community and develop essential skills among our scholars.
The goals of the program include:
• increasing retention and graduation rates of our LI student body to match those of our overall STEM student body,
• increasing departmental and institutional awareness of the challenges faced by LI students in STEM, and
• developing new programming specific to LI students and integrating with existing campus supports and activities.
In this study, we examine the effects of sense of belonging and grit on student retention and academic performance among our LI and non-LI student populations. Specifically, we aim to address the following research questions:
• RQ1. Can we see differences in sense of belonging and grit among our LI vs. non-LI student population (first-year STEM)?
• RQ2. Is sense of belonging and/or grit correlated with retention and/or academic performance among our students?
• RQ3. Does the S-STEM program have an impact on sense of belonging?
We use the responses to a psychosocial survey disseminated to the majority of first-year STEM students to address RQ1 and RQ2. For RQ3, we have our scholars take the psychosocial survey every year, so we are able to track changes in sense of belonging and grit among this student group as they progress through their degree program.
Preliminary results show that sense of belonging is significantly lower among our LI first-year STEM students (M=4.854, SD=1.249) than their non-LI counterparts (M=5.211, SD=1.268), t(641) = -2.624, p=.009. No differences in grit were observed among our LI (M=2.756, SD=.650) and non-LI (M=2.746, SD=.604) first-year STEM students, t(641) = 0.156, p=.876.

References:
[1] Duckworth, A., & Gross, J. J. (2014). Self-control and grit: Related but separable determinants of success. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 23(5), 319-325. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721414541462
[2] Duckworth, A. L., Peterson, C., Matthews, M. D., & Kelly, D. R. (2007). Grit: perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(6), 1087. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.6.1087
[3] Duckworth, A.L, & Quinn, P.D. (2009). Development and validation of the Short Grit Scale (Grit- S). Journal of Personality Assessment, 91(2), 166-174. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223890802634290
[4] Good, C., Rattan, A., & Dweck, C. S. (2012). Why do women opt out? Sense of belonging and women's representation in mathematics. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(4), 700. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0026659
[5] Hunter, M. (2020). The role of grit and other non-cognitive factors: Investigating the engagementand achievement of STEM majors. Retrieved from https://etd.ohiolink.edu/
[6] Hodge, B., Wright, B., & Bennett, P. (2018). The role of grit in determining engagement and academic outcomes for university students. Research in Higher Education, 59(4), 448-460. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-017-9474-y
[7] Leslie, S. J., Cimpian, A., Meyer, M., & Freeland, E. (2015). Expectations of brilliance underlie gender distributions across academic disciplines. Science, 347(6219), 262-265. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1261375
[8] Marra, R.M., Rodgers, K.A., Shen, D. and Bogue, B. (2012), Leaving Engineering: A Multi-Year Single Institution Study. Journal of Engineering Education, 101: 6-27. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2168-9830.2012.tb00039.x
[9] Rosenthal, L., London, B., Levy, S. R., & Lobel, M. (2011). The roles of perceived identity compatibility and social support for women in a single-sex STEM program at a co-educational university. Sex Roles, 65(9–10), 725–736. doi: 10.1007/s11199-011-9945-0