Research: Photovoice: Visualizing Undergraduate Student Engineering Identities

Research: Photovoice: Visualizing Undergraduate Student Engineering Identities This project will explore factors that influence engineering students’ persistence to degree completion, with the goal of informing effective interventions that improve student success outcomes and strengthen the engineering workforce. A strong engineering workforce is essential to sustaining U.S. innovation, infrastructure, economic competitiveness, and technological leadership. As national demand for engineers continues to grow, improving student persistence and supporting successful entry into engineering careers remain priorities for higher education institutions and policymakers. More specifically, this project will examine how students come to see themselves as engineers and how that evolving self-perception -particularly between the first and second years of undergrad - influences their persistence to continue along engineering pathways. This project advances program goals by increasing our understanding of how students develop the identity, confidence, and sense of professional belonging necessary to thrive in engineering. The findings will advance knowledge about how educational environments contribute to the development of engineering identity and persistence, offering practical implications for improving institutional practices and student support. Research results will be shared through both traditional scholarly outlets and open-access venues, such as a public photo exhibition hosted in partnership with a local not-for-profit organization, expanding the reach of the work and engaging a broader public audience in understanding the experiences that contribute to the development of future engineers. This longitudinal study will examine how engineering identity develops during and changes across the first two undergraduate years of college, and how this development influences undergraduate students’ persistence in engineering pathways. The project will engage two cohorts of undergraduate engineering students during their first and second years, a critical period when nearly half of undergraduate engineering students leave their programs, or higher education entirely. Guided by engineering role identity theory, which conceptualizes identity through the dimensions of interest, recognition, and competence beliefs, the study will address three research questions: (1) using photovoice, how do students describe their engineering identities and how do these identities change over time; (2) how do institutional environments shape students’ experiences of engineering identity; and (3) what challenges do students encounter that may detract from their identity as engineers. The project will employ a mixed-methods approach combining surveys, photovoice activities, and focus groups. The team will measure engineering identity using a validated engineering identity survey instrument, administered at multiple time points throughout the study to capture changes over time. They will analyze survey data using repeated-measures analysis of variance to examine within-group and between-group differences over time. Qualitative data from participant-generated photographs, photovoice reflections, and focus group discussions capture students’ lived experiences and their analysis will provide a richer understanding of how engineering identity develops longitudinally. By combining longitudinal survey data with qualitative photovoice methods, this project will contribute new methodological approaches and deepen understanding of engineering identity development during a critical period along the pathway to degree completion. Photovoice will provide a novel and innovative opportunity to visualize engineering identity from students’ perspectives, generating a catalog of images and narratives that reveal what becoming an engineer looks like through students' lived experiences. Findings from this work will inform evidence-based interventions, institutional practices, and student support strategies to strengthen engineering persistence and the professional formation of future engineers. The team will share project outcomes through scholarly publications, public-facing digital platforms, research briefs for institutional leaders, and community-based visual exhibitions to broaden public understanding of engineering identity and the formation of engineers. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.