2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The development of students’ engineering identity has long been linked to retention within engineering programs, particularly during their first two years of engineering coursework. Measurements of engineering identity typically measure changes over lengthy periods of time. Our project is interested in investigating how students’ day-to-day experience, especially problem solving experiences, contribute to or detract from the development of engineering identity. We use affect, or emotions, feelings, beliefs, values, and moods, to examine these day to day experiences. Our project examines how positive or negative affective engineering experiences interact with or influence the development of engineering identity. For this project, we examine the subjects of engineering, mathematics, and science, as these courses are all important in engineering students’ experiences in the first two years of coursework.

Our primary data source is retrospective end of semester interviews conducted with students. We found affect has an influence on interest, performance and competence, but little evidence that affect influenced students’ recognition. Meta-affect, or students’ thoughts and feelings about their own affect, helped mediate negative emotions students experienced and aided in their belief in their own performance and competence. Implications of this work include faculty being more aware of their students’ affect and the ways it can influence the development of their students’ engineering identity. Outcomes of this work have included methods for faculty to scaffold complex assignments with affect and identity in mind. Going forward we plan to understand how instructors can help students to develop more productive meta-affect.