Creativity and Identity in the Construction of Professional Portfolios

Abstract

In this qualitative study, we explore acts of creative identity construction by focusing on the digital portfolios of engineering graduate students as they integrate research, teaching, and service with personal beliefs and experiences. We employ theoretical lenses of identity construction as performative and fluid, and self-authorship as intentional meaning making in that process. Our findings indicate two types of creative identity construction. First, the participants construct professional identities by drawing together and commenting on various experiences, values, and passions they select to represent their professional selves. Second, and equally important, the students use portfolios to construct an identity for the profession of engineering itself, not only through explicit engineering philosophies, but also through the ways in which they describe their work and their values. Both sets of constructions represent creative acts of engineering identity work. We conclude that the discursive acts that students undertake when they pair evidence of their achievements with narrative reflections serve as sites of identity construction that allow students the time and the framework to intentionally construct their career trajectories, their personal development, and the various facets of their professional roles. Constructing a portfolio is creative act of self-authorship that allows students to integrate their many intersecting identities and craft wholly new and unique ways of being an engineer.