Investigating the tension between persistence and well-being in engineering doctoral programs

Abstract

Background

While studies examining graduate engineering student attrition have grown more prevalent, there is an incomplete understanding of the plight faced by persisting students. As mental health and well-being crises emerge in graduate student populations, it is important to understand how students conceptualize their well-being in relation to their decisions to persist or depart from their program.

Purpose/Hypothesis

The purpose of this article is to characterize the well-being of students who endured overwhelming difficulties in their doctoral engineering programs. The PERMA-V framework of well-being theory proposes that well-being is a multifaceted construct comprised of positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, accomplishment, and vitality.

Design/Method

Data were collected in a mixed-methods research design through two rounds of qualitative semistructured interviews and a survey-based PERMA-V profiling instrument. Interview data were analyzed thematically using the PERMA-V framework as an a priori coding schema and narrative configuration and analysis.

Results

The narratives demonstrated the interconnectedness between the different facets of well-being and how they were influenced by various experiences the participants encountered. The participants in this study faced prolonged and extreme adversity. By understanding how the multiple dimensions of well-being theory manifested in their narratives, we better understood and interpreted how these participants chose to persist.