Engineering Students’ Self-Concept Differentiation: Investigation of Identity, Personality, and Authenticity with Implications for Program Retention

Despite many efforts, women continue to be underrepresented in engineering. Herein, we seek to contribute to the body of knowledge impacting female engineering student retention challenges. Our theoretical lens is identity theory and self-concept differentiation. More specifically, we used an exploratory approach to assessing freshmen and senior engineering students’ personality across engineering and non-engineering contexts. First, we wanted to find personality profiles among engineering freshmen and seniors in engineering settings, and then compare them to their personality in nonacademic settings and authenticity between the two. Personality and authenticity methods, of which were the Big 5 and Authenticity scale, were used in a survey to determine personalities of participants between academic level and gender in their engineering and nonacademic environments. From collecting and analyzing the data, results show that engineering students mainly described themselves as agreeable (i.e. helpful, trusting, considerate), conscientious (i.e. thorough, reliable, follows through with plans), open to experience (i.e. curious, inventive, deep thinker). We also found that female engineering students showed a significant difference in extraversion factors between the freshman and senior classes, and senior females show the greatest personality and authenticity variation between environments. Further exploring engineering identity, personality, and authenticity will develop a better understanding of engineering students of how they perceive themselves in and out of engineering contexts.