Research Initiation: Understanding Student Perceptions of Engineering Stress Culture (ESC)

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Stress is a salient feature for undergraduate students that has negative effects on student performance, retention, and experience. Previous work has shown that engineering students perceive particularly high levels of stress and anxiety about their grades and course performance. While these studies have identified triggers of stress in individuals, the current project aims to unravel how stress is perceived and propagated as a social norm in engineering and the resulting impact on students. Specifically, the objective of the Engineering Stress Culture project is to understand how students perceive stress as part of the culture of engineering disciplines and how this impacts their development of a sense of inclusion in engineering and identity as engineers. The perception that stress is part of studying engineering or being an engineer is detrimental to student persistence and success in engineering disciplines. Understanding student perceptions of stress will improve student experience, performance, and retain talented students in the engineering disciplines.The goal of the Engineering Stress Culture project is to characterize the role of stress and identify the ways in which stress can impact students developing an engineering identity. Our study will explore the overall research question: How does the Engineering Stress Culture (ESC) impact students' perception of their engineering discipline or their level of identification with engineering? This two-year project will involve both quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews that will collectively elucidate the relationships between engineering student stress, identity, and inclusion. The results of the study will be used to understand how students experience stress as part of their engineering education and its impacts on forming an engineering identity. While sources of anxiety and stress for individual students have been documented, students' perception of stress being part of the culture of their discipline is not well-understood. Our proposed study will enhance our understanding by 1) characterizing students' perceptions of ESC and potential variation among majors and 2) determining the relationships between constructs including anxiety, stress, perceptions of inclusion, and identification with their engineering major. Understanding what students view as stressful and how students identify stress as an element of program culture will support the development of interventions to mitigate student stress. Interventions to reduce stress through program design and administration will benefit student recruitment, retention, and success, all of which will support efforts to broaden participation in engineering.