Investigating engineering identity development and stability amongst first-year engineering students: a person-centred approach

Engineering identity is a rapidly evolving construct within engineering, primarily due to its link to engineering persistence. Yet, most engineering identity research has been qualitative in nature or has described individuals within the analytical technique as coming from a single population. This study is the first to allow for the detection of different meaningful groups of engineering students demonstrating similarity on the construct using the new technique of Random Intercept Latent Transition Analysis. Through this study we identified three stable classes of engineering identity amongst first-year undergraduate students. Women demonstrated a greater likelihood of advancing to higher engineering identity classes over time than men. Unfortunately, the influence of COVID-19 yielded negative engineering identity developmental patterns for some students. Lastly, descriptive analyses of students’ first-year engineering identity class assignments in relation to their selection/non-selection of engineering majors revealed Calculus-readiness upon college entrance might be an important component in these relationships.