Undergraduate Engineering Students’ Development of a Researcher Identity

Abstract

Undergraduate research experiences have been shown to increase retention, help students clarify career goals, and increase understanding of how research is done. There are a limited number of studies investigating students’ identity development and integration into research communities of practice. Identity development and integration into communities of practice have been shown to be relevant to student success in both engineering and physics. The purpose of this work is to investigate how undergraduate engineering students see themselves as researchers. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze students’ responses to open-ended survey questions. This analysis revealed that students see themselves as researchers because of personal character traits, interest in research, competence in completing research activities, and experience with doing research.

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American Educational Research Association 2015
Undergraduate Engineering Students’ Development of a Researcher Identity
Courtney Faber and Lisa Benson
Department of Engineering and Science Education, Clemson University
Abstract
Undergraduate research experiences have been shown to increase retention, help students clarify career
goals, and increase understanding of how research is done. There are a limited number of studies
investigating students’ identity development and integration into research communities of practice. Identity
development and integration into communities of practice have been shown to be relevant to student success
in both engineering and physics. The purpose of this work is to investigate how undergraduate engineering
students see themselves as researchers. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze students’ responses
to open-ended survey questions. This analysis revealed that students see themselves as researchers because
of personal character traits, interest in research, competence in completing research activities, and
experience with doing research.
Introduction
The need for one million additional science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) graduates
over the next decade has resulted in calls to improve STEM education, placing a focus on retention and
production of graduates with skills to address multi-disciplinary challenges (Haghighi, 2005; Kenny, 1998;
PCAST, 2012). Students leave STEM majors for a variety of reasons: uninspiring courses and unwelcoming
classrooms (PCAST, 2012). Additionally, thinking critically, communicating effectively, and solving
complex problems have been reported by employers as skills students should bring to the workforce
(Associates, 2013). While these skills are taught in traditional classroom environments, deeper learning has
been seen when students engage in learning communities such as the undergraduate research environment
(Brownell & Swaner, 2009; Kuh, 2008). Undergraduate research experiences (UREs) have the potential to
improve retention and develop critical skills of STEM majors.
UREs provide students with opportunities to conduct investigations in collaboration with mentors, making
intellectual contributions to their discipline (Wenzel, 1997). UREs have been shown to lead to positive
gains, including retention of students; clarification of goals; establishment of collegial relationships with
faculty and peers; increased understanding of the research process; and increased ability to work and think
independently (reviewed in Laursen, Hunter, Seymour, Thiry, & Melton, 2010). Student perceptions of
research abilities and confidence in conducting research is a critical link between acquisition of research
skills and application of these skills (Pajares, 2003). While studies have investigated the benefits of
participating in UREs, little work has focused on students’ identity development and integration into
research communities of practice.
Theoretical Framework
Identity is “the ‘kind of person’ one is seeking to be and enact in the here and now” (Gee, 1999, p. 13).
Identity has been studied in science, physics, mathematics, and engineering (Carlone & Johnson, 2007;
Cass, Hazari, Cribbs, Sadler, & Sonnert, 2011; Hazari, Sonnert, Sadler, & Shanahan, 2010; Tonso, 2006).
Physics identity has been shown to predict student persistence in STEM fields and choice of careers in

American Educational Research Association 2015
physical science (Hazari et al., 2010). However, there has been limited work that looks at UREs using
identity as an analytic lens.
Students participating in UREs join a community of practice that encourages intellectual and professional
development (Hunter, Laursen, & Seymour, 2007; Seymour, Hunter, Laursen, & DeAntoni, 2004). Hunter
et al. (2007) utilized a social constructivist lens that includes communities of practice and identity to
investigate gains for students participating in apprenticeship style research programs. Students reported
gains, including thinking and working like a scientist; personal-professional attributes; clarification,
confirmation, and refinement of goals; and working independently. Faculty were more likely to view
student development as “becoming a scientist” than the students, viewing student development as moving
from peripheral participation towards a centralized role in the community of scientists (Hunter et al., 2007).
This study expands the work by Hunter et al. (2007), taking a participant centered approach to investigate
how student perceptions of research influences how they see themselves as researchers and their
development of a researcher identity. Through this study we sought to investigate how undergraduates in
bioengineering (BioE) and material science and engineering (MSE) see themselves as researchers.
Methods
Participants and Open-Ended Survey
Undergraduates in BioE and MSE who have participated in a research experience were emailed and asked
to complete three open-ended surveys during the Fall 2014 semester. The surveys were approximately 15
questions and included questions about their conceptions of research, experiences with research, and views
of themselves as researchers. At the end of the survey, students were asked for the number of years they
had been enrolled, their major, and their username so surveys completed by the same student could be
matched. For completing each survey, students were entered into a drawing for a $25 gift card. Students
who completed all three surveys were given a $15 gift card. For this study, we focused on student responses
to the question, “Describe three ways in which you see yourself as a researcher.”
Analysis
Conventional qualitative content analysis was used to analyze student responses to the surveys (Hsiu-Fang
Hsieh, 2005). The only data that were analyzed were those from the participants who completed all three
surveys (n=16). Conventional content analysis was selected as it avoids using predefined categories,
allowing codes and categories to emerge from the data. This was especially important in this work as our
goal was to understand how undergraduates conceptualize what it means to do research. This method is
useful when existing theories and/or literature are insufficient. Grounded theory was not selected because
the methods used to collect the survey data prevented the use of theoretical sampling. There was limited
depth of understanding that could be obtained in this study as our questions were set and did not develop
from participant to participant as analysis occurred (the common grounded theory approach).
First, responses were read multiple times to gain a general understanding. Next, words in the text that
represented key concepts were identified. Concurrently, the researcher kept notes about initial thoughts
concerning the data and analysis. Codes were developed to reflect similar concepts previously identified.
These codes were then sorted into categories based on their relatedness to other codes.

American Educational Research Association 2015
Results
All students in this study saw themselves as researchers. While this was unsurprising given only URE
participants were surveyed, further analysis into underlying reasons for this identity was warranted.
Students were asked to elaborate on up to three reasons why they feel like researchers. Analysis of responses
resulted in four themes: 1) Character traits, 2) Competence, 3) Interest, and 4) Experiences.
1) Character traits
When describing how they see themselves as researchers, a number of students listed attributes that they
possess. Many students described how they are motivated to conduct lab work or improve current
technologies. Students also addressed the fact that they are able to work past times when nothing seems to
be going well.
“I am determined to come up with some sort of result regarding the research question
at hand.” Participant_29
“I am motivated to improving upon things.” Participant_43
“I have a strong work ethic that helps me keep working even when things are not going
well in the lab.” Participant_31
Students also stated that they feel like researchers because they like to question how things work, and think
innovatively. These students described that they like to figure things out rather than just accepting how
things are.
“I think innovatively about a project, trying to see new ways to approach a problem.”
Participant_28
“I am curious about what I learn and don’t just want to see what happens, I want to
know the how and the why.” Participant_45
“I think to think outside the box. I don’t like to accept the way things are, and I like to
consider possibilities that have been previously unexplored.” Participant_2
Students described that they feel like researchers because they want to discover and learn new things in the
lab, and many are also driven to continue expanding their own personal knowledge and understanding of
the world around them.
“I want to help discover something new.” Participant_20
“Currently driven by learning new things through the procedures I learn and apply.”
Participant_44
Students mention that they feel like researchers because they are problem solvers. These students feel like
they have problem solving skills that they continuously develop. Being problem solvers affects how
students approach work in the lab.

American Educational Research Association 2015
“Problem solver – When I learn a new skill I try to learn it until I can properly problem
solve anything that comes up. Knowledge isn’t just knowing, it’s understanding as
well.” Participant_13
“I have really good problem solving skills that I continue to hone every day.”
Participant_31
2) Competence
When asked why they feel like researchers, some students stated that it is because they feel confident doing
research and research related activities.
“I am pretty good at coming up with new ideas to try in the lab.” Participant_31
“I feel competent doing research.” Participant_27
“I have the knowledge sufficient to critically consider how to best assess some
questions and plan experiments based on that idea.” Participant_35
3) Interest
Students also stated they feel like researchers because they are interested in the topics they are researching.
This interest keeps these students motivated to put forth the work to run experiments.
“I am interested enough in specific topics to put forth the effort to run experiments to
find results.” Participant 29
Other students described feeling like researchers because they like doing lab work. These students also
mentioned enjoying the implications of doing research such as solving real world problems and discovering
new theories.
“I enjoy working in the lab and solving real world problems.” Participant_47
“I like to do scientific experiments to discover new theories.” Participant_43
“I love presenting my work to show why science is important.” Participant_9
Some students had more general descriptions with respect to what they enjoy about research. They mention
that they enjoy learning new things, whether it is in their specific field or not.
“Love learning new things in my field of research as well as other fields.”
Participant_44
4) Experiences
Many students stated they feel like researchers because they have worked on research projects. To these
students, working in a research lab is enough to add to their feelings of being a researcher.
“I have participated in many team and individual research projects and written up lab
reports.” Participant_17

American Educational Research Association 2015
“I conduct research in a lab.” Participant_20
Other students described feeling like researchers because of activities that they have done in the lab. These
activities include: conducting literature reviews, keeping a lab notebook, designing experiments, working
with others, presenting work, and writing reports.
“I have kept multiple detailed laboratory notebooks.” Participant_44
“I have often had to work with other researchers to complete experiments.”
Participant_35
“I know how to and have performed extensive literature reviews and made
presentation, papers based off of it.” Participant_17
“I have written reports listing my data, discussing its implications or factors
contributing to the data being what it was, and describing conclusions drawn from the
data.” Participant_35
Discussion
This research took a student perspective to understand how students who have participated in a research
experience see themselves as researchers. Previous work by Hunter et al. (2007) describes what faculty
believe signifies students becoming researchers. These include temperamental attributes, independence,
and understanding of the nature of research. In our work, these findings are similar to what we presented in
the categories: character traits, experience, and competence. The major difference between the work
presented here and the work of Hunter et al. (2007) is that we found that students did identify personal
attributes that connect with being researchers.
The work presented in this paper is the first step in establishing a framework to assess students’
development of a researcher identity. Themes presented in this work are similar to those of Hazari et al.’s
(2010) physics identity framework, which is composed of three constructs: interest in physics,
performance/competence in physics, and recognition by others as a physics person. We found interest and
competence in research activities as important for undergraduates to see themselves as researchers.
Additionally, we saw experience in research and character traits to influence how students see themselves
as researchers. We believe these additional constructs emerged because of how students defined what is
needed to be a researcher. Students believe researchers are people who perform research and have specific
characteristics such as being curious and determined. We did not have evidence of performance influencing
a student’s researcher identity likely because there are no grades or evaluation methods in place for research
as there are for physics.
Implications
Work presented here can be used to inform the development of effective UREs and other educational
experiences aimed at developing skills such as thinking critically, communicating effectively, and solving
complex problems. This work suggests that giving students the chance to experience authentic research
activities will encourage their researcher identity development. Possible activities include: conducting

American Educational Research Association 2015
literature reviews, designing experiments, analyzing results, writing reports, presenting work, and working
with others.
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