Correlation of Personality Type with Student Interest in Sustainability in Civil Engineering

This paper presents a study on the relationships between personality type and student interest in sustainability within civil engineering. The personality types of undergraduate civil engineering students in a sophomore introduction to civil engineering course with sustainability-related topics were determined using the Myers Brigg Personality Type Indicator®. Sustainability related topics were presented in the course through traditional instructor-centered lectures. Personality type was then related to student-reported interest in civil engineering and sustainability, as well as student-reported importance of personal sustainability issues through surveys. Results correlate student interest ratings and importance ratings to personality type as well as gender. Results give preliminary insight into effective methods for attracting a more diverse population into civil engineering. Feeling (F) and perceiving (P) personality types – atypical in civil engineering – showed largest increases in interest in sustainability at the end of the introductory civil engineering course. Female, thinking (T) personality type civil engineering students also showed an increase in civil engineering at the end of the introductory civil engineering course. Therefore sustainability may be a viable means for attracting atypical engineering personality types and females into civil engineering. Introduction Sustainability has been identified as a critical component in engineering education by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), and the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). 1-3 Additionally, many Universities have incorporated sustainability concepts into civil engineering programs such as Carnegie Mellon University, Syracuse University, and Arizona State University, which have successfully implemented courses in sustainability in Civil Engineering freshman and sophomore courses. 4-8 Sustainability in lower level civil engineering courses is often introduced at a conceptual level in the broad sense of environmental, economic, and social implications of engineered structures and materials as contrasted to the technical, physics-based course topics usually present in upper-level engineering courses. There is an established knowledge base linking personality type with learning preferences in engineering curricula. 9-15 In this vein, personality assessment can be a useful tool for improving the effectiveness of teaching technical engineering courses. As the topic of sustainability, particularly in its abstract introduction in lower level courses, may be fundamentally different from traditional technical engineering courses founded on scientific theory, it is useful to study the relationships between personality type and sustainability in engineering education. Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicator and Type Theory A variety of personality assessment tools are available and easily accessible, one of the most well-known being the Myers Brigg Personality Type Indicator® (MBTI). The MBTI identifies 16 different personality types founded on preferences in four major categories based on Jung’s Theory of Psychological Types. MBTI results indicate whether a person tends to be extroverted (E) or introverted (I), sensing (S) or intuitive (N), thinking (T) or feeling (F), and judging (J) or perceiving (P). Extroverted types focus energy on the outer world while introverted types focus P ge 26411.2 energy on the inner world. Sensing types process information through actual facts and details that they encounter through their senses while intuitive types think more in abstract theory, general impressions, and intuition. Thinking types make decisions based on logical, impersonal facts while feeling types are subjective and value-based. Finally, judging types prefer orderly, structured, task-oriented lives while perceiving types prefer flexibility and openness. Extensive research performed in the 1980s by the ASEE-MBTI Engineering Consortium of eight universities showed engineering students favor thinking and judging personality types and are more often introverted; there was little difference between sensing and intuitive types. 9 Additional research also supports these findings. 10-15 Course and Survey Description This paper presents a study on the relationships between personality type and student-reported interest in civil engineering and sustainability within civil engineering. The paper also discusses personality type correlation with personal sustainability issues. The experimental group included sophomore civil engineering students in an introductory civil engineering course which includes sustainability related topics at Manhattan College during the fall semester of 2014. The course focused on traditional civil engineering topics and construction methods as well as sustainable buildings and construction. Students describe sustainable building rating systems, utilize traditional techniques for surveying, apply principles of passive design, explain and formulate preliminary designs of alternate energy systems, and describe behavior and construction methods of building materials. The course is taught in a traditional, instructor-led lecture format. Three sections of the course taught by two different faculty members were included in the study. 59 students were enrolled in the course, but useable survey data was only received by 38 students – some students did not properly identify a personality type and/or did not complete the interest and importance questions. Students were asked to complete the personality indicator online outside of class time and then report the results on an in-class survey. Due to circumstances beyond the authors’ control at the time, some students were unable or chose not to complete the online personality assessment and thus their interest rating and importance ratings could not be correlated to personality type. During future surveys and assessment, the students will complete the personality assessment in class along with the interest and importance surveys so that more complete data can be gathered. The personality types of the undergraduate civil engineering students were determined using self-reported responses to the MBTI. Students then completed surveys which requested student personality type, student interest in sustainability, student interest in civil engineering, and importance of personal sustainability issues both before and after the course. Interest in sustainability and civil engineering was reported as: no interest, little interest, neither interest nor disinterest, considerable interest, or passion for sustainability/civil engineering. Personal sustainability related topics are shown in the survey excerpt in Table 1 and relate to decisions students may make on a daily basis which pertain to sustainability. Survey Results Survey results were formulated to consider an Interest Rating Score and an Importance Rating Score on a scale of 0 through 4. The Interest Rating score was calculated for level of interest in both civil engineering and sustainability before and after the course as an average score where P ge 26411.3 responses were quantified as follows: passion for civil engineering/sustainability= 4 points; considerable interest in civil engineering/sustainability = 3 points; neither interest nor disinterest civil engineering/sustainability = 2 points; little interest civil engineering/sustainability = 1 point; and no interest civil engineering/sustainability = 0 points. Importance Rating score was calculated for the questions about degree of importance of several personal sustainability issues as quantified in the question statement (very important = 4 points; important = 3 points; neutral = 2 points; unimportant = 1 point; not important at all = 0 points). Table 1: Survey excerpt for Personal Sustainability Issues