Professional Engineering Socialization at the Intersection of Collective Constructions of Expectations and Individual Shame Experiences

Abstract

Background: Prior work has investigated engineering students' professional formation through the lens of individual experience and from a cultural perspective. The concept of professional shame provides an opportunity to explore students' experiences of disciplinary expectations as situated in a context of engineering social norms. 2 Kamanda et al. Studies in Engineering Education 3 Kamanda et al. Studies in Engineering Education LITERATURE REVIEWIn this section, we explore prior work around student stressors and their impacts, the role of engineering culture in the professional formation of students, and emerging scholarship on professional shame. While these factors are individually impactful in education, in this study, we will explore their interplay in the lived experience of engineering students.Prior research on pressures facing students has identified a range of academic and non-academic stressors resulting from parental expectations, grades, test taking, time pressures, and future plans

Professional Shame amid Faculty-Student Interactions

“…Our analysis in this paper follows a broader investigation in which we conducted in-depth interviews (n = 16) and focus groups (n = 10) with engineering students (n = 38). We analyzed the interviews with engineering students using an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) approach [6][7]19], and we analyzed the focus groups using an ethnographic perspective [5][6][7]. These findings, and our rationale for using a qualitative mixed-methods approach to study the sociopsychological phenomenon of professional shame [20], are published elsewhere.…”

“…Further, our ethnographic analysis of student focus groups demonstrated that the emotional experience, and the cultural scripts for expressing or regulating the emotion, were connected to the identityrelevant expectations that pervaded engineering programs. Students collectively defined being an engineer as connected intellectual performance and work ethic, and when they inevitably failed to meet such expectations, they were often unable to express the emotional experience in the context of their engineering programs [5][6][7].…”

“…In this research paper, we examine episodic moments of professional shame as experienced by students when they interacted with faculty members. Anchored in theoretical foundations of psychology and sociology [1][2][3][4] and in empirical foundations of our prior work [5][6][7][8][9], we use Huff et al's [9] conceptualization of professional shame as "a painful emotional state that occurs when one perceives they have failed to meet socially constructed expectations or standards that are relevant to their identity in a professional domain" (p. 414).…”