Making Connections: Belonging in Engineering Fosters Career Intentions Through Value

• In Event: Poster Session 15
  In Poster Session: Motivation in Education SIG Poster Session 1

Abstract

This longitudinal study adopts an expectancy-value framework to explore the relation of college engineering students’ feelings of belonging to their motivation (expectancies, task-value, and cost) as well as their intention to pursue a career in engineering fields. Structural equation modeling analyses provided evidence for direct effects of first-year feelings of belonging with the College of Engineering on end-of-second-year motivation and career intentions. Additionally, belonging was predictive of career intentions via task-value, but not via expectancies or cost. Results suggest that belonging has important consequences for motivation and career intentions one year later, providing evidence of a possible mechanism through which belonging positively predicts persistence.

Authors

• Emily Bovee, Michigan State University

• You-kyung Lee, Sookmyung Women's University

• Anna Sansone, Department of Defense Education Activity

• Daina Briedis, Michigan State University

• S. Patrick Walton, Michigan State University

• Lisa Linnenbrink-Garcia, Michigan State University