(197a) Student Identity and Belonging As It Relates to Gender and Gpa

The purpose of this presentation is to explore the relationship between GPA and engineering identity and belonging for chemical engineering students across genders. We surveyed a total of over 300 chemical engineering students at Penn State ranging from the 2^nd year to 4^th year. The survey included questions from four validated instruments:

1. Identity: Engineering Identity (Godwin 2016)
2. Identity: Collective Self-Esteem (Luhtanen and Crocker 1992)
3. Belonging: Sense of Social and Academic Fit (Walton et al. 2023)
4. Belonging: Peer Inclusivity (Davis et al. 2023)

There is no correlation between GPA and gender however we see significant differences with gender for all four instruments above. We further explored this data to look for correlations between students’ GPA and how these correlations might be different for students who identified as male and those who identified as female. We found that GPA did not correlate with any of the instruments for those identifying as men but did correlate with Engineering Identity and Sense of Social and Academic fit for those identifying as women. We will discuss these differences in terms of other influences including growth and fixed mindset.