A Discourse Analysis of the Emotional Experiences of Engineering Students in an Upper-level Signal Processing Course

The purpose of this preliminary study was to investigate the emotional experiences of engineering students matriculating in a mathematically rigorous upper-division signal processing course. An assessment instrument was designed to capture brief snapshots of students’ emotions at strategic time intervals throughout the semester. The instrument was distributed to students at the beginning of the semester, mid-semester and the end of the semester. The responses were mapped to a circumplex model of affective emotions and an emotion trajectory was determined based on the responses. Preliminary results indicate that as students matriculate through the semester, their emotional spectrum spanned from positive to negative to more-negative. Further analytical analyses must be conducted to determine the source of these findings; however, these results may contribute to the design of instructional interventions that seek to enhance positive emotions in strenuous engineering courses and ultimately improve student achievement.