Understanding identity among biomedical engineering students and professionals

Abstract

As a highly multidisciplinary field, Biomedical Engineering (BME) has a complex and ever-evolving identity. Little is known about how individuals in BME, especially students, perceive how BME intersects with and incorporates other science and engineering disciplines. Additionally, individual identity is recognized as a crucial factor in choosing and persisting in an academic discipline, yet there are few studies examining how individuals in BME professionally identify. Understanding such identities and how they are formed may be valuable in innovating BME instruction to properly meet students' academic and professional needs. This work explores how BME students and professionals view themselves and the field of BME as related to traditional science and engineering influence. This paper presents quantitative analysis of Likert-scale survey data collected from an annual professional meeting held in 2018. A total of 150 survey responses were analyzed, including 63 undergraduate students, 53 graduate students, and 27 professionals. Descriptive statistical analysis reveals that on average, survey participants view BME as both science and engineering to an equal degree and identify strongly as both engineers and scientists. A multi-step regression was constructed to analyze what predictor constructs contribute to a stronger identity for either engineering or science and how these identities influence career path goals and choices. This study shows that recognition from others is a significant predictor of individual identity and that personal interest is a significant predictor of how an individual views BME. Gender was not found to influence professional identity or perception of BME in this study.