TABLE 3.

Encouragement themes descriptions and sample quotes

Theme	Description	Sample quote
Pushes or advocates	Others encourage them to do something specific, such as participate in a class or join a club; or to persist in engineering via recruitment to workshops or teams; this is a form of encouragement that is more directed to an outcome.	Probably the great mentor I had in engineering was a male teacher who was the Way to Technology for middle school. My 6th and 7th‐grade year as a teammate on a robotics team, I was with a team of boys who were older than I was. They graduated middle school before me. Going into eighth grade, he encouraged me to start up my own all‐girls' team. I was really unsure about it at first, but he continually pushed me and would help me out. I recruited enough girls to have not one, but two all‐girls' teams for our middle school. We worked to make history at our middle school, actually being the first middle school team to compete at our state competition, not only as the first one, but it was the first all‐girls' team to do so. That was so inspiring to me for going from that middle school and being so unsure about, can I do this… Olivia, White, 11th grade
Provides academic support or mentoring	Others offer engineering or technological knowledge; help them learn engineering content and master engineering activities; help them navigate engineering or other academic spaces; gives them information either academic or otherwise to help them succeed.	I guess my brother is very encouraging in that manner…. I was very confused on what kind of engineering I wanted to do. He was very supportive in explaining different things to me. When I finally chose to do computational engineering, he was very supportive in getting me a meeting with the academic advisor at [university] and meeting with her, and talking with some of his friends, and just getting me anything that I needed, and helped me answer questions to get me excited about going into that programme. Rebecca, Latinx, 12th grade
Recognizes or believes in them	Others see them as someone capable and skilled in engineering, or believe that they have the potential of being an engineer.	Whenever we're doing kinda arts and crafts thing or something and I suggest something, they're like, “See, this is why you're gonna be the engineer”– where i’s like, “Emily's gonna be a doctor.” I’s just kind of different. They're all really encouraging. I've never had a friend tell me that I can’ be an engineer. Camilla, Latinx, 12th grade
Promotes sense of belonging	Being with others in an engineering space and feeling a sense of fit/comfort/welcome. Feelings of encouragement within a context populated by others who are like them.	I started going to [robotics] team meetings in the summertime, and I just fell in love with the environment, so I just kept going. I felt really encouraged by everybody. There weren’ a lot of girls on the team. For my first year, there were five of us. Everybody was just so nice to me and so brotherly that the mentors, which were mostly male, and then most of my team members were also boys—they were very encouraging. They basically supported me the entire time. Camilla, Latinx, 12th grade