2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This empirical research full paper investigates how parents contribute to their children's engineering major choice through narratives of pre-college pathways. While prior research has established that parents influence children's engineering interests, we know less about the specific mechanisms through which this influence shapes major choice decisions. This study addresses the research question: How do parents and guardians contribute to the academic decisions and educational pathways of first-year engineering students? We interviewed 6 parents of first-year engineering students enrolled at a public, research-intensive university in the Midwest using a semi-structured interview protocol focused on how parents storied their children's pre-college journeys. We analyzed data using reflexive thematic analysis, applying Main et al.'s (2021) model of student pathways into engineering as our conceptual framework. Our research design uniquely positions parents as key narrators of their children's engineering pathways, revealing how family narratives themselves serve as interest-building infrastructure that shapes major choice. Findings reveal two mechanisms through which parents influence engineering major choice. Theme 1 demonstrates how parents actively construct pre-college engineering experiences through family narratives, with strategies that vary by parental STEM exposure. Theme 2 shows how parents mediate their children's navigation of major choice decisions by acknowledging expertise limits and affirming student autonomy in educational decisions. Together, these themes illustrate that engineering pathways are relationally produced through ongoing family dialogue rather than through individual discovery or neutral merit alone. Our findings both confirm and elaborate Main et al.'s conceptual model by revealing that connections between pre-college factors and engineering major choice require active parental interpretation, framing, and resource provision. Parental STEM exposure emerges as a key factor shaping both the strategies parents employ and the forms of support they provide. Understanding how students choose engineering, therefore, requires attention not just to individual characteristics but to the family systems and narrative framings that make engineering identities accessible, desirable, and achievable. Implications suggest that broadening participation in engineering requires supporting diverse families in the narrative construction work they already perform—positioning parents as collaborators in post-secondary recruitment and retention, and honoring the varied strategies families employ to make engineering major choice possible.