2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Studies have found that more than 10% of engineering undergraduate students identify as having a disability, with an additional 3% identifying as having a chronic illness. Research suggests that the identity development of students with disabilities in higher education, specifically STEM, can be impacted by aspects of their STEM learning environments that create further contradiction as they form their identities as engineers with disabilities. Studies have identified these contradictions as barriers, roadblocks, and bottlenecks which accumulate within the experience of stem students with disabilities, thus making both their engineering and disability identities harder to access and accept. Most research in this area focuses on the experiences of engineering students with disabilities more broadly, with little research having been conducted to understand the initial stages of disability identity development. Additionally, studies have shown that students in stem find their identity as engineers at odds with their identity as disabled, with this presenting itself as a cultural clash between engineering and the widely accepted medical model of disability.

This phenomenological study investigates the following question: How do engineering undergraduate students experience initial stages of disability identity formation while in college? The purpose of this study is to explore the challenges faced and experience of engineering undergraduate students who are in the initial stages of disability identity development. This study will focus on how students navigate the formation of disability identity as they adjust to a different version of themselves, and how they navigate the systems in place to assist students with disabilities within a STEM learning environment.

This paper will present an analysis of themes found in semi-structured interviews analyzed from a sociocultural and medical perspective to better understand the impact that the engineering learning environment has on this transitional experience. This analysis is intended to find the essence of the experience of disability identity development when placed in the social and cultural context at the intersection of engineering and disability. The ultimate goal is to find ways to lessen the dissonance that occurs when students are simultaneously forming their engineering and disability identities.