Engineering graduate students' perceptions of challenges and stressors: A comparison of master's vs. doctoral students and domestic vs. international students

The purpose of this study is to better understand engineering graduate students' perceived stressors and challenges while considering degree and citizenship status. In spite of the growing attention on the need to create inclusive learning environments by supporting equitable participation of students, academic and research cultures in engineering graduate education are still characterized as unwelcoming. The existence of the large master's (degree status) and international (citizenship status) student populations is also often overlooked. In this study, we identified perceived academic and psychological stressors for four different engineering graduate student groups with varied degree (e.g., master's and doctoral) and citizenship status (e.g., domestic and international) and compared similarities or differences in the student's identified stressors between the groups. We also explored the perceived challenges regarding the identified stressors for different student groups, focusing on unique challenges being associated with degree or citizenship. We did so by conducting an explanatory mixed-methods study using a dataset collected from 2019 to 2021 from students (n=376) enrolled in a mandatory graduate seminar course focused on promoting equity in STEM. The findings illuminate unique stressors for specific student groups and generate a nuanced understanding of why and how different groups of students feel pressure from the identified stressors, which are often related to individual or institutional attributes associated with degree or citizenship.