Sense of Belonging in the Industrial Engineering Classroom

Sense of belonging to a discipline can be important to achievement and persistence in the discipline. This research examines how selected course components, implemented during an academic term in applied industrial engineering courses, impact students’ sense of belonging to the discipline. The components include (i) assigning values affirmation exercises, (ii) inviting guest speakers with diverse backgrounds, and (iii) giving reading assignments for journal articles with diverse authorship. Students’ sense of belonging to industrial engineering before and after the course components are delivered is measured with a three-item scale. Changes in sense of belonging during a term in which the course components are delivered (intervention groups) are compared with changes in sense of belonging during a term in courses in which they are not (control groups). Analysis is conducted at the combined level (full intervention and full control group) and also across subgroups created from students’ self-reported identities. The results indicate statistically significant gains in sense of belonging for combined intervention groups and for some subgroups. No statistically significant gains in sense of belonging were detected in control groups.