How do engineering students understand and conceptualize individual resilience?

Abstract Background There is increasing focus on developing resilient engineering students, this being linked to the perceived difficulty of degrees and the rate of technological change. Simultaneously, there continue to be issues with diversity and retention, and concerns regarding student mental health, both of which have been linked to resilience. Despite this, beliefs that engineering students hold about resilience and what it means to be resilient remain largely unexamined. Purpose/Hypothesis We explore the role of underlying structures and contextual factors in shaping engineering students' perceptions and experience of resilience within engineering education and practice. Design/Method We conducted semi‐structured interviews with 23 engineering students in a UK‐based institution. Transcripts were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis (RTA). Results Students recognized resilience as important within engineering education and practice, but highlighted the detrimental impact that a focus on resilience can have on mental health. Whether resilience was necessary, as well as what constituted a resilient response, appeared to vary depending on the situation and required some level of judgment. Students appeared to believe that the university environment provided the adversity required to develop resilience but played a less significant role in providing the support necessary for positive adaptation. Conclusions This work acts to surface implications of situating resilience as a desirable student or graduate attribute without consideration for wider structural inequalities. Failing to expose assumptions regarding the situations which require a resilient response risks further perpetuating the very issues around diversity, retention, and progression, which the development of resilience has been proposed to overcome.