Staying or leaving: contributing factors for U.K. engineering students’ decisions to pursue careers in engineering industry

Abstract

This sequential, explanatory mixed methods study examined students' intentions to stay in or leave engineering industry careers upon graduation. We gathered survey data from 128 second-year engineering students about their intentions and attitudes. The participants were enrolled in a two-week interdisciplinary engineering summer course at University College London called How to Change the World. From this survey, we also interviewed 15 students, eight intending to stay and seven intending to leave, about their intentions and experiences that informed those decisions. We found that students' perceptions of future (motivation), expectations, experiences at university, confidence in their ability to succeed in engineering courses, and sense of belonging in engineering industry were the main contributors to their decisions to stay or leave. The two data streams combined provide a richer picture of how students may be better supported during and through their engineering degree programmes.

Engineering Leaders Retain Their Technical Identities: Living the Sociotechnical Duality

“…The concept of identity has an important place within engineering education. Researchers have explored the importance of identity in relation to entry and persistence in engineering undergraduate programs [5], [14]. Engineering student identities have also been found to be influential on career paths post-graduation [15].…”

Examining the Importance of Noncognitive and Affective (NCA) Factors for Engineering Student Success

“…Students who were more likely to leave an engineering industry pathway after graduation versus being undecided had less interest in doing hands-on work, higher openness, lower extraversion, higher neuroticism, and were more likely to have chosen engineering as a field of study because it would guarantee a job upon graduation. The largest effect among all these significant results was the odds of staying in an engineering industry pathway versus being undecided for students who had high perceptions of future (Odds Ratio = 12.987; p < 0.001) [19].…”

“…The results of this comparison indicated that students who intended to stay in engineering industry careers upon graduation versus being undecided were more likely to have higher motivation from perceptions of the future, lower openness, lower conscientiousness, lower agreeableness, and lower desire to supervise others [19]. Students who were more likely to leave an engineering industry pathway after graduation versus being undecided had less interest in doing hands-on work, higher openness, lower extraversion, higher neuroticism, and were more likely to have chosen engineering as a field of study because it would guarantee a job upon graduation.…”

“…Spanning both RQ1 and RQ2, as seen in Figure 1, is our work in deploying a modified version of the SUCCESS survey to a large, public research university located in the United Kingdom [19].…”

“…Again, as these results show, different NCA factors are related to different outcomes. For a more comprehensive description of this study see [19].…”