Perceived Support and Gender: Identifying with the Engineering Community as a First-Year Engineering Student

Abstract

National interest in mental wellbeing in the Canadian population has trickled down to focusing on subsets of the population that are particularly vulnerable to poor mental wellbeing. One of these subsets is the engineering student population due to the high stress and anxiety associated with their course load and prospects. The current study carried out a secondary analysis of wellbeing surveys administered to engineering students (N = 141) during the Winter 2020 semester. The primary analysis sought to determine whether perceived peer support, instructor support, and staff support predicted engineering identity. Greater identification with one’s career path is shown to be related with greater wellbeing in students and employees in the form of greater satisfaction and likelihood to remain in the degree program. Further, the analysis explored whether gender and hometown acted as moderating variables, either intensifying or lessening the main relationship. The analysis uncovered a statistically significant relationship between perceived peer support and engineering group identity, r = .534, p <.001. This relationship was moderated by gender, p = .033, wherein female engineering students who reported low levels of peer support were far less likely to feel a sense of belonging in the engineering community than male students. This gender difference did not exist for those who reported high levels of perceived peer support. Implications for female representation and program development are discussed.