2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This research paper explores conceptualizations of difficulty in engineering using empirical data. Undergraduate engineering education has been described as academically rigorous, contributing to high attrition rates as students struggle with the demanding curriculum and environment. These high attrition rates have contributed to a growing shortage of engineers in the United States. Recent research highlights a tension between maintaining academic standards and promoting student success, with these two goals often implicitly seen as contradictory. Prior work has begun to explore the construct of hardness in engineering with one study categorizing forms of hardness as either constructed or intrinsic. Here, we opt for the term ‘difficulty’ over ‘hardness’ for clarity and connection to broader literature about difficulty in learning and engineering. Difficulty has been conceptualized in many ways, including the difficulty of the subject matter itself and the difficulty that students face in completing an engineering undergraduate degree. The purpose of this paper is to bring theoretical coherence to the construct of difficulty in engineering, characterizing the different forms of difficulty that students face to propel conversations about necessary and unnecessary forms of difficulty. This qualitative study draws on 21 interviews with undergraduate engineering students across departments at a large public university in the Midwest. These interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis to identify common challenges and difficulties they face. Our analysis was informed by prior work that conceptualized hardness as constructed or intrinsic. We first attempted to deductively code data into these categories and then used inductive coding techniques to identify themes within and beyond the original categories. Findings were organized into four overarching themes: content difficulty, course-based difficulty, environmental difficulty, and personal difficulty. Participants and background literature reflected and supported these areas of student experience. Our findings suggest that both the content and the broader environment impact how much difficulty a student experiences, providing insight into different sources of difficulty. We find that while there is a level of difficulty built into the content (i.e., content difficulty), students can experience different levels of difficulty mastering that content because of their prior experiences and the broader educational environment. As the field continues to strive to attract more students into engineering and help them successfully reach graduation, our findings suggest the importance of student support services and community in helping students overcome the difficulties of engineering.