2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This work-in-progress paper presents preliminary findings from a research project investigating the interplay between GenAI and human-to-human social interactions and their impact on socially constructed psychological concepts that significantly influence students’ integration and retention (e.g., self-efficacy, connectedness, and engineering identity) in the context of engineering undergraduate education. The rapid adoption of generative AI (GenAI) is drastically reshaping engineering education, where students exhibit a higher frequency of GenAI interactions compared to those in other disciplines. The adoption of GenAI reshapes how students engage with technology and traditional human-to-human interactions. Student-GenAI interactions, characterized by their active and bidirectional nature, now encompass interactions that traditionally occurred with other humans in the educational environment (e.g., peers, faculty, staff, TAs, etc.). This represents a broader shift in engineering education, given that human-to-human social interactions serve as a primary mechanism of proximal learning and play a key role in the development of psychological concepts essential for long-term retention (i.e., self-efficacy, connectedness, and engineering identity (SCI)) - both of which are critical components in engineering undergraduate education. Despite its significance – and increasing evidence in social psychology suggesting GenAI interactions’ influence on human intuitions of social engagement - the literature in engineering education primarily focuses on how to integrate GenAI as a tool to enhance learning, rather than its social and psychological impacts on the broader educational ecosystem.

To address this need, the larger research project adopts a concurrent mixed-methods approach, drawing on both closed- and open-ended survey responses from engineering undergraduate students at two R1 universities located in the northeastern and south-central regions of the United States. This work-in-progress paper presents the background, related literature, theoretical framework, and methods; and the poster presentation will further include preliminary findings from the ongoing data collection