Discovering Upper-Division Students’ Cognitive Engagement Across Engineering Courses—An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis Approach

Background: Engineering education research has consistently purported that student cognitive engagement is tied to learning outcomes and can be influenced by pedagogical strategies. Yet, there is little research describing the nuanced experience of students as they engage with their courses and how context plays a role in shaping this engagement.

Purpose/Hypothesis: Our research seeks to understand how upperclassman civil engineering students are engaged across their engineering courses. We use the experience of individuals to explain how the sample made contextual decisions of engagement.

Design/Method: We used Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) as the overarching guide when designing the study, collecting data, and interpreting findings. We recruited an appropriate sample of five engineering students to participate in a semi-structured interview. To explore participants’ engagement context and experience, we used prompts to discuss engagement generally over time. The interview progressed to a discussion of engagement specifically in their engineering courses from the previous term. In analysis, we generated themes from each participant’s individual experience. As these themes coalesced, we developed super-ordinate themes that connected the experiences of individuals to the larger whole.

Results: Through analysis and interpretation, we developed the following super-ordinate themes: Behaviors for Engagement Opportunity—actions that created more or fewer chances for deep cognitive engagement, Engagement for the Future Self—looking to the generated future self to determine meaningful and applicable curriculum, and Engagement in Course Context—adjusting cognitive engagement to mirror the engagement stance of instructors.

Conclusions: We view our findings as indicative of the malleable nature of student’s cognitive engagement, particularly in relationship to authority figures such as instructors. While personal values and future goals were indeed factors in participants’ engagement decisions, all participants were impacted by their classroom context. This work builds evidence for the importance of instructors utilizing evidence-based instructional practices to cultivate learning environments that maximize students’ engagement potential.