ABSTRACT

Students’ mental health and well-being are increasingly recognized as urgent and important needs in engineering education. Mindfulness-based interventions, in which students learn and practice present-focused techniques such as meditation and deep breathing, have been demonstrated to positively affect college students’ well-being. The use of such interventions for engineering students specifically, however, has not been thoroughly examined. In this work, we examine the feasibility and utility of a group-based mindfulness intervention for 48 undergraduate engineering students. Participants completed four weekly, one-hour group mindfulness sessions led by the study authors. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected before and after the intervention to assess the impact of the intervention on participants’ trait mindfulness, perceived stress, intellectual curiosity and exploration, and weekly mindfulness practices. Compared to participants in a control condition, participants engaging in the group intervention demonstrated an increase in trait mindfulness and weekly mindfulness practice, and lower perceived stress. The intervention did not have a significant impact on participants’ intellectual curiosity and exploration. The group mindfulness intervention was well-received, with a majority of participants attending all four sessions, rating them as helpful, and reporting that they would retain the length and frequency of the sessions. Results suggest that group-based mindfulness practices may be a feasible way to support the well-being of undergraduate engineering students. We conclude with a discussion of the applications and implications of this work for other educators.

DOI: 10.18260/3-1-1153-36040

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Elizabeth Dalton

Tomas Estráda