Engineering Identity Formation and Communication in a Digital Age

To investigate what today's students think about communication's role in an engineering career, and about related aspects of their engineering identity, the authors developed the Engineering Communication Identity Survey and administered it to students in selected freshman courses at their own college. This paper reports on some of the results, including a notable finding that students' responses were generally much more “pro-communication” than expected. The authors hope to engage future collaborators from a range of engineering programs and industrial settings to compile and compare data as well as anecdotal observations and evidence.