Is This the Real Life? Exploring How Virtual Learning Environments Influence Engineering Identity

This full research paper explores how the remote engineering education environment influences the ways students come to see themselves as engineers. We answer the research question “What aspects of the remote engineering education environment support or fail to support undergraduate engineering identity development?” Participants included 32 freshman and sophomore students during the fall and spring semesters of 2020. Focus groups used a semi-structured protocol to encouraged participants to reflect on their identities, motivation, and success. Participants' experiences with the remote education environment organically emerged throughout the focus groups and were analyzed using directed content analysis to develop codes and themes. The analysis was guided by a conceptual framework that considers figured worlds, communities of practice, and engagement with the environment. Two themes emerged and emphasized the physical and social environment as influential to identity development. Both themes were connected by a subtheme of realness in which participants described the online education environment as not feeling real and hard to engage with.