2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This WIP research paper explores engineering students’ experiences of a cooperative education (co-op) program in terms of their professional and career development. Co-ops are designed to engage students to practice knowledge in classrooms in authentic, hands-on work environments based on the partnerships between an academic institution and an organization. Prior work demonstrates the positive association between participation in a co-op program and academic and future employment returns. However, less literature interrogates how engineering students perceive the actual professional development out of such an experience. Therefore, the research question of this work is: How do engineering students participating in a co-op program describe their gained professional development toward their career goals?

This paper leverages an existing large dataset collected by the university’s cooperative education division. We used students' reflective surveys collected during their co-op experience in 2023 from the cooperative education office at a large Midwest public university (n = 5003). The data for this study were collected through a reflective survey administered to students at the conclusion of their co-op experiences. The survey included questions designed to elicit detailed reflections on students' ability to navigate workplace challenges, their communication and problem-solving skills, their perceptions of personal strengths and areas for growth, and the ways in which the co-op experience influenced their professional identity and career goals.

We plan to use thematic analysis to contextualize and identify emerging themes guided by our theoretical framework – Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) – under the three main constructs: self-efficacy beliefs, outcome expectations, and personal goal setting. Our data analysis is expected to provide contextualized insights into how students' co-op experiences contribute to their self-efficacy, influence their career aspirations, and shape their professional and personal development goals. By draft submission, we will have completed our initial analysis of the reflection data and have themes to share related to our research question.

The value of this specific effort lies in the size of the dataset from which we draw our insights. Because the institution the dataset originates from offers mandatory co-op programs, we have a wealth of textual reflection data to explore how co-op influences different elements of the student experience. The implications of this work involve identifying the (in)congruence of students’ perspectives of their gained professional development and career advancement with that expected from academic institutions and industrial partners. Meanwhile, the findings of this work will suggest practical and structural improvement for future co-op programs, especially in terms of assessment through reflective surveys, in fostering essential skills and career readiness among students.