Work-In-Progress: Exploring interactions between short-term academia-industry engagement moments and professional identity development in undergraduate construction students: A grounded theory study.

To better prepare undergraduates for the STEM industry which struggles with workforceshortages, academia-industry collaboration offerings and engagements are facilitated byprofessors. Professional identity development (PID) theories link well-designed engagementswith increments in undergraduates’ thinking, feeling, and performing as professionals. However,existing PID studies focus on long-term engagements such as internships and disregard shortterm engagements such as guest lectures. As a preliminary effort to bridge this gap, the purposeof this study is to explore how short-term academia-industry guest lecture engagement moments(SAIs) interact with self-definitions to influence PID in construction undergraduates. Ourconstructivist grounded theory methodology engaged 10 construction undergraduates in semistructured interviews regarding their SAI-driven professional identity development (SAI-PID).We utilize constant comparative analysis for coding, categorization and theory development.Preliminary findings indicate that guest lectures drive PID in construction undergraduates. Ouremerging SAI-PID grounded theory framework utilizes four sequential phases of important guestlecture moments and three personality types to explain how varied student-GL psychologicaldistance perceptions are associated with varied attentiveness, responsiveness, PID, and theregulation of professional aspirations. SAI-PID is characterized by increments in cognition andemotion towards professional aspirations. However, increments in performance are not asprevalent. This signals a key difference between short- and long-term engagements as shortengagements provide sparse opportunities for professional practice and socialization.We bridge critical gaps in literature by positioning SAIs and self-definitions as viable for PID inundergraduates. To enhance SAI contributions to PID, the practical and interactive componentsof SAIs, as well as personal stories should be increased. To reduce psychological distanceperceptions, inviting alumni guest lecturers or a panel of guest lecturers with diverse attributeswill ensure that majority of students perceive similarities with GLs to support PID. Institutionsshould provide opportunities for undergraduates to strengthen their self-regulation skills as thiscould reduce psychological distance perceptions and drive PID. The diverse identity content,process, and context variables in our framework inform future dialogues, investigations andinterventions to improve SAI-PID. In the long term, stronger professional identities willstrengthen transitions into the workforce and reduce persistent STEM workforce shortages.