Transcript – Emotional Intelligence and its Impact on Identity Formation of Engineering Graduate Students

Our study looked at 35 professional working masters students enrolled in a program that focuses on technical engineering management.

This study was multilayered, so we’ll be presenting only a portion of our results today in doing the factor analysis of the survey results, three factors that emerge from the survey where one believes about the ability to perform to beliefs and the ability to tolerate ambiguity in decision making. And three beliefs about self as a leader. After running in correlations between the factors, we found a significant correlation between belief of self as a leader and their belief about their ability to perform. There was no other significant correlations found.

Along with the survey, the research team dug deeply into the personal narratives of the participants. Some participants had undergraduate degrees outside of engineering but were working in an engineering company. They felt obtaining this degree would make them feel more like an engineer. Within the program, many students shared about how their awareness of their emotions and how their impact, how they impact their interactions with others was strengthened. One participant shared, I’m more attuned to the feelings that develop. I feel that rising up I catch it’s rising up. In looking at the future, many participants reflected on how their view of what a leader is and does as shifted as a result of the program. One participant shared leadership isn’t power over others. It’s more of a collective group effort.

Additional narratives were grouped together around culture and gender as participants made sense of their view of leadership and the leader they want to be. Stories entrenched in their cultural and social identities were shared. One person, one participant, said society placed a part of that for me, being a female, and I struggled early with learning disabilities. I was taught I would not do well in math or engineering. But acknowledging the engineer in me is, I think, just more part of becoming myself and fitting what I do with who I am and being OK with that. From our work with this grant, we also submitted a futures grant proposal for a special NSF sponsored Arizona State University mentored Grant Experience. Our team was accepted. One hundred and seventy teams were not. Our partnership as researchers will continue beyond the work of this grant.