Exploring the Relationship Between Participation in a Living-Learning Community and Professional and Engineering Identities

Abstract

Professional identity is a concept that has been explored over the years in a number of disciplines, but with little attention paid to engineers. A more specific component of professional identity is engineering identity, which warrants further investigation due to positive impacts on retention. The purpose of this study was to investigate how participation in an engineering-based living-learning community affects students’ professional and engineering identities and to describe these identities within a college of engineering. Results revealed that some subscales of professional identity and engineering identity indicated statistically significant differences by participation in a living-learning community. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.