Western society values free will, equal chances, and self-expression, especially when there is economic prosperity [1]. Choice is essential to free will, but more choices make a decision more substantial, leading to more risk, and more responsibility. This makes choosing a study field a big step in someone’s identity development. It is part of who they will become and how other people will see them [2].

When people have the freedom to pursue their dreams, they conform more easily to gender stereotypes in their study choices. They search for a sense of belonging, by following their gender identity [1]. A society where academic fields come with stereotypes of who belongs and who does not, impacts someone’s choice according to their gender or background. Looking at engineering for example, white males dominate the field [3]. This can influence the feeling of belonging to engineering for someone that does not identify as white or male. It is likely that they will choose a different study field, or have more difficulties with persisting once entered [4].

The sense of belonging is defined as ‘one’s personal belief that one is an accepted member of an academic community whose presence and contributions are valued’ [5, p. 701]. Having a strong sense of belonging is related to higher motivation, more academic self-confidence, higher engagement, and higher achievement [5]. When someone does not see themselves represented in a study domain, or do not conform to the stereotypical image that society has of that domain, it decreases the chances of a positive identification with this domain [6]. In some cases, it entails modifying their identity or narrative to fit it. For example, some women described themselves becoming less feminine during their STEM education. Archer et al. [7, p. 23] theorize that this is partially out of a need to be taken seriously in their field of study that has a strong link with masculine traits. When the identity that is needed to belong in the study field diverges too far from the own identity, this can lead to drop out [8].

The purpose of this study is to investigate how the discipline-specific identity is related with the feeling of belonging with the related study programme. The focus is on the field of engineering that is typically dominated by (white) men [3]. For example, of all the new students enrolled in the Bachelor Engineering Technology at the KU Leuven (Belgium), 10% is female, and 8% have a migration background [9].

Looking at Belgium, we see that female students and students with a migration background face different barriers. While intake for students with a migration background is low, they are already underrepresented in secondary education tracks that prepare for engineering programmes in university [10]. After completing these secondary education tracks, they face less hurdles in choosing engineering. Conversely, female students are not underrepresented in secondary education tracks, but do not make their way to engineering [11]. However, once they enter the program, students with a migration background struggle more with persistence than students without a migration background. For female students, we see that they often do better than male students [12], something we do not see in several other university, for example in Germany [13] and the US [14].

Although they face different barriers, both female students and students with a migration background, seem to have difficulties to identify with engineering. This study asks how engineering identity is related with the feeling of belonging for first-year students of engineering programmes, and how this relationship is different according to their gender or migration background.

This contribution is part of a broader study that focusses on the recruitment and retention of engineering students, conducted at the KU Leuven, Belgium. In October 2022, an online survey was organized with first-year students in engineering science, engineering-architect, engineering technology, and bio-engineering sciences. Although students were encouraged in a course to participate, participation was voluntary. Informed consent was obtained after approval of the Privacy and Ethics Committee (G-2022-5665). After data cleaning, 942 respondents remained (response rate of 75% ). Among these respondents, 249 students were registered as female, 95 with a migration background from outside the EU, and 39 from within the EU. We investigate the link between two concepts, engineering identity and the sense of belonging. Following Godwin et al. (2020), the concept of engineering identity was measured by three subscales on a five-point likert scale (from ‘not at all important’ to ‘very important’): (1) ‘Recognition’ measured the extent that people in their environment see the student as an engineer (3 questions); (2) ‘Interest’ looked at the enjoyment and fulfilment of studying engineering (3 questions); (3) ‘Competence’ focused more on students’ belief to perform well in engineering programmes (4 questions originally, but one was omitted). The concept sense of belonging is based on some subscales of the questionnaire of Good et al. (2012) and was also measured on a five point likert scale (from ‘not agreed at all’ to ‘completely agreed’): (1) ‘Membership’ measured whether a student feels part of the engineering community (4 questions); (2) ‘Acceptance’ looked at the extent to which a student feels accepted in one’s program (4 questions); (3) ‘Trust’ focused on the trust that a student has in one’s teachers (4 questions). In this study, it was analysed how the relationship between engineering identity and the sense of belonging differs according to gender and migration background. (1) Migration background was measured by the student’s birth country and by their parent(s) or grandparents' birth country. For the students with a migration background, we make a distinction between inside or outside the EU [12]. (2) Gender will be measured as the sex according to their passport. Unfortunately, we are not able to measure if people identify as non-binary or transgender, so we will not be able to distinguish these groups. Data was analysed in R. The different subscales were confirmed with affirmative factor analysis, followed up with t-tests, and linear regression analysis.

Both engineering identity [15] and sense of belonging [5] have been shown to impact retention rate and study results of students. Since the engineering field is dominated by white men, female students and students with a migration background often have a lower sense of belonging and a weaker engineering identity. In the engineering courses at the KU Leuven, there is a difference in retention rate when it comes to people with or without a migration background, while we do not see that same difference when it comes to someone’s gender. Female students also perform better than men [12]. That is why we are interested to see if the difference in the sense of belonging and engineering identity between students with and without a migration background is bigger than between female and male students. As of the date of submission of this abstract, the analysis of the data has been ongoing. First results of the t-tests show that all subscales show a significant difference (p<0,01) between male and female students, as well as between students with and without a migration background. However, a first look at linear regression models, show that female students only score significantly lower on the ‘trust’ subscale, but not on the other subscales for sense of belonging. For students with a migration background, a slightly lower, but significant effect of the sense of belonging ‘membership’ subscale was observed. When it comes to engineering identity, female students score significantly lower score on the ‘competence’ subscale than male students. For students with a migration background, there is a significant increase on the subscale ‘interest’, and a decrease on the subscale ‘recognition’ in comparison with students without a migration background. More in depth analysis is necessary before specific results can be made public.

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