Research Initiation: Developing Technical Identity of Construction Engineering Students with Mixed Reality

The construction industry continues to be one of the most dangerous industries in the nation, with a staggering rate of fatalities and non-fatalities. Although current advances in sensing technologies can mitigate this problem, the construction industry is experiencing a lack of skilled workforce to implement sensing technologies. This is partly because, typically, only the workforce who are technically inclined and identify with the implementation sensing technologies are engaged in advancing sensing technologies in the construction industry.

It becomes important to seek ways of developing the professional technical identities of the future workforce, because the way students identify and see themselves is an indicator of their professional and educational persistence that often culminates in career success and increased retention of the skilled workforce. As a first step to address this, this research will investigate how interactions with sensing technologies in a mixed reality environment strengthen construction engineering students' professional technical identity development.

The mixed reality environment will allow for hands-on implementation of sensing technologies on a virtual construction site, facilitate students’ engagement and interest, and provide a safe environment for exercising professional agency that promotes professional identity. This research will be led by a PI, who is a new engineering education researcher but experienced with sensing technologies and in designing and implementing pedagogical tools for construction education and will be mentored by an experienced engineering education researcher who is an expert in STEM learning, construction education, and professional identity development.

By integrating the PI into the engineering education community, this project will advance the goal to expand the community of researchers studying the professional formation of engineers.

This project will seek answers to two research questions RQ1: What are the professional technical identity practices related to implementing sensing technologies in the industry? And RQ2: In what ways does a mixed reality environment driven by technical professional identities influence technical professional identity development in construction engineering students?

The first research question will involve an understanding of (1) the knowledge and experiences adopted by these professionals during with implementation of sensing technologies in the industry; (2) the processes (steps), and (3) the thought processes (decision-making process) taken by construction professionals to implement sensing technologies on construction applications. This will be facilitated through interactions with the mixed reality environment developed for the implementation of sensing technologies.

The results from this phase will inform professional technical identity practices that will drive the improvement of the mixed reality environment. The research will implement the mixed reality environment in two institutions (minority and non-minority serving) with students from many backgrounds. The second research question will adopt critical-incident interviews and surveys to identify how and why the mixed reality environment strengthened students’ professional technical identity development through the tenets of interest, recognition, and performance.

The expected research outcomes are in (1) establishing a theoretical framework that defines the decision-making process and technical steps adopted by professionals who identify with the technical workforce for deploying sensing technologies in the construction industry; (2) developing theories that describe the psychological risks of a multimodal mixed reality environment designed for professional technical identity development; and (3) developing substantive theories that explain how and why a mixed reality environment strengthens professional technical identity development in construction engineering students. The defined experiences, decision-making process, and technical steps embodying the professional technical identity practices will facilitate the recruitment and retention of broad populations of students and, in the long term, strengthen the engineering workforce.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.