Often, engineering students are treated as a homogeneous population in post-secondary
education. This paper explores the differences between chemical engineering students and
chemistry majors as well as students of other engineering disciplines. The data used were drawn
from the nationally-representative Sustainability and Gender in Engineering (SaGE) survey.
This survey collected responses from 6,772 students in first-year English classes during Fall
2011. The survey included topics covering students' experiences in their last high school science
classes, beliefs about engineering and sustainability, as well as their demographics and prior
academic performance.
According to students' responses on their likelihood of entering a particular major, 123 students
were identified as chemical engineering students, 691 students were identified as some “other”
engineering students, and 251 students were identified as chemistry majors. We compared
responses of the chemical engineering students with these two disparate groups respectively to
identify differences in high school experiences, attitudes, and backgrounds using t-tests for linear
variables, Wilcoxon rank-sum tests for Likert-type questions, and chi-square tests for
dichotomous variables.
Chemical engineering students show uniqueness in their career goals when compared to both
engineers as well as chemistry majors. For example, they differ significantly from other
engineers in their prior chemistry experiences, problem solving strategies, and their science
identity. Chemical engineers are almost indistinguishable from chemistry students in their high
school science experiences and academic preparedness except for indicators of their physics and
math identities. These findings have implications for student recruitment and matriculation into
chemical engineering and the instruction of these students.