Engineering Students' Perceptions of the Future: Implications for Student Performance

This work seeks to understand how engineering students' long-term motivations influence their present actions, such as course work. Future Time Perspective (FTP) and possible selves provided models for how student perceptions of the future can guide their actions in the present. Previously, FTP has been applied in engineering quantitatively to study differences among engineering majors and retention of engineering students; this study extends previous work to include rich descriptions of engineering students' FTPs through qualitative methods. Students were interviewed about their long-term goals and actions taken in the present. Students interviewed (n=9) were at the end of their second year or beginning of their third year of an engineering program. Using themes from the data, motivational profiles of students' future goals were characterized in terms of their possible selves and FTP. Results presented here describe FTPs with goals defined far into the future and the interactions of these goals with present tasks such as problem solving. This research furthers the understanding of the connection between multiple levels of student motivation and how these levels influence students' actions and performance.