‘Do I Belong Here?’: Persistence and Retention Implications of Engineering Belongingness and Identity in Academically At-Risk Populations

Full Paper: Research. Students create their identities as engineers throughout their experiences in college, and these identities significantly impact engineering persistence. This paper uses Godwin’s identity formation framework to examine engineering identities in academically at-risk populations. We expand this framework by presenting an individual-institutional-social model to help understand how engineering identities are iterated as students confront academically at-risk labels. We also examine how belonginess interacts with identity construction using the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) belongingness indicators. We develop two measures – a non-belongingness score that applies NSSE characteristics to student demographic data, and an identity-vulnerability score derived from survey responses. We hypothesize that students with higher non-belonginess scores are less likely to be retained in the major, as they self-select out after being notified that they are on probation. Conversely, students who have stronger engineering identities and who have greater affinity in groups that traditionally ‘belong’ in engineering will not be as deterred by the academically at-risk status and will be more likely to persist. This research is significant as it contributes to increasing retention in engineering and computer science, as well as improving equity and inclusion in STEM fields.