2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This Work in Progress Paper will describe a pilot study being conducted to characterize and support the thriving and identity development of engineering students at XXX and XXY. Engineering programs are notoriously difficult and often promote a weed-out culture. Even students who are successful in engineering programs, meaning they graduate on time with high grades, might find themselves struggling to find balance and feel fulfilled in both their work and personal life. Indeed, some of the habits acquired in engineering programs, such as a tendency to skip sleep or meals to complete assignments, could hinder students' personal thriving. Widmann et al. (2021) found that non-cognitive factors supporting student success tended to decrease in engineering undergraduates between the first and second years of college, indicating that developing strategies to counteract this trend is a key need in engineering programs.

We define thriving as the ability to feel good and function optimally, and respond to stress in a productive manner that promotes growth and success. Non-academic factors that support thriving include sense of belonging, engineering identity, growth mindset, meaning and purpose (Scheidt et al, 2018; Scheidt et al, 2018; Scheidt et al, 2021). Students who are able to thrive, meaning they have thriving competencies, will be most likely to learn from and become more resilient after an academic setback or adverse event, rather than succumb and leave engineering or simply survive without growth.
While there are many aspects to thriving, some non-cognitive factors that lead to success are currently being explicitly targeted by Place-Based Learning Community (PBLC) programs for incoming first year students at XXX. In particular, a sense of belonging within the local, university, and engineering community is promoted within the PBLC. A PBLC is a cohort of new students who are intentionally grouped together starting during orientation and continuing throughout the first year of university, in order to foster a sense of community, belonging, and support within a major. PBLCs have been shown to improve first-year student outcomes and decrease equity gaps in STEM retention at XXX (ref blinded for review).

The student population within the XXX School of Engineering (SOE) is currently changing. New [redacted for review] and [redacted for review] degree programs opened in Fall 2023, in addition to the existing [redacted for review] major. This has drastically increased the number of Engineering students at XXX, with ME being the largest driver of growth and expected to be about double the number of students of the other two programs in the long term. Because Mechanical Engineering tends to have a lower share of women, we expect that this will shift the gender ratio in the SOE (Data USA, 2023). XXX first became a Hispanic-Serving Institution in 2013 with 41% of student enrollment receiving Pell grant support (XXX IRAR, 2023). Before expanding to include [redacted for review] degrees, students in the XXX Engineering department regularly noted the collaborative, non-competitive and supportive nature of the department - this is valued in the department and is something the engineering faculty hope to retain and build on during this period of change.

The Mechanical Engineering program at XXY, the peer comparison school, is widely recognized for its strong academic curriculum. Its graduates are highly sought after as both career professionals and graduate students. Despite this success, however, a recent study showed that students, while academically successful, are not thriving. This suggests that much improvement could be achieved if students learned and adopted thriving competencies. XXY is a predominantly White institution with 22% of enrolled students receiving Pell grant support. University-wide, the percentage of Hispanic/Latino students is quickly rising, with the 2022 incoming class at 21.1% and the 2023 incoming class at 24.0%. The campus is expected to be designated a Hispanic-Serving Institution within the next few years.

This Work in Progress paper will describe the development, implementation, and initial results of the first round of surveying engineering students at both institutions. We aim to investigate how the XXX PBLC contributes to the development of thriving competencies in students compared to their peers at XXY, and to analyze any differences that emerge between the two campuses. After this initial pilot study, the data will be utilized to develop specific interventions that can be introduced in the first or second year in the major to help students increase their thriving and to assess the transferability of these interventions between the two universities.