Uncovering the Hidden Curriculum of Leadership Education in Civil Engineering

The undergraduate experience is crucial for developing competencies and socializing future engineers into the profession. Leadership is a key outcome of engineering education that individuals are expected to develop for employment and advancement and that the profession is expected to demonstrate to address complex and interdependent societal challenges. Despite the growing inclusion of leadership in the formal curriculum in part due to accreditation criteria and industry pressure, there are persistent concerns over engineering students' workforce-ready leadership competence. This research examined how 13 civil engineering undergraduate students at four institutions in the United States define leadership and understand its development through the lens of the hidden curriculum. This framework was selected to conceptualize values and beliefs that are unintentionally transmitted to explore the potential misalignment between how leadership is formally taught and inadvertently learned. Thematic analysis of the semi-structured interviews indicated the varying ways in which students understand whether leadership can be learned, how leadership is defined, and who can lead. The findings are viewed through hidden curriculum to uncover their taken-for-granted beliefs and situated in the literature to show the tension between students' perspectives and contemporary leadership theory. Since students learn about leadership throughout their lives, inside and outside the classroom, this research does not attempt to trace the roots of these leadership beliefs. Instead, this paper uncovers students' tacit understandings of leadership to offer implications for educators and programs to recognize students' understandings and support their leadership development.