2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Previous research indicates 70% of engineering doctoral students consider departing their programs and many, 40-60%, leave due to conflict with advisors and peers, financial or academic difficulties, and personal or family concerns. Some students choose to remain in doctoral engineering by changing their research lab or advisor, program, or university. In a recent preliminary survey, 60% of doctoral engineering students seriously considered changing or had changed research labs or universities during their doctoral training. Although changing research labs provides an opportunity to retain partially trained and qualified engineering doctoral students, the costs for the individual, programmatic barriers, and advisor conflicts complicate the process. Engineering education requires creative solutions to the continued attrition of talented and well-qualified doctoral students who choose to leave without a doctoral degree. The full research project will describe and contextualize the lived experience of changing research labs during doctoral engineering training through quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods. First, longitudinal data from a new survey will capture the frequency, predictors, and career outcomes of lab change. The second phase will use qualitative data from students planning, who are currently or have recently changed research labs or universities during doctoral engineering studies. A third phase will combine longitudinal quantitative data (Phase 1) with the qualitative interview data (Phase 2) to construct timelines for mixed-methods analysis of the process of changing research labs. In the first year of the grant, the first waves of quantitative and qualitative data will be collected. The paper will provide an early overview of the data collection process and initial findings. The findings of this study will offer valuable insights into how PhD advisors can more effectively support engineering doctoral students, resulting in improved mentoring practices. Additionally, the data will inform program heads and graduate support staff in implementing evidence-based reforms and policies that better support graduate students, potentially increasing the continuation of engineering doctoral students in their programs.