IEECI Exploratory Project: Why Women Stay: An Investigation of Two Successful Programs

Virginia Polytechnic Institute And State University, Blacksburg VA

Investigators

Abstract

The proposed research will help the engineering education community understand how to better attract and retain a more talented and diverse student body by investigating two successful engineering/pre-engineering programs that have been designed specifically to facilitate self-efficacy of students in engineering. One program is a well established full year high school course built around the national FIRST robotics competition. The other is a new engineering program at all-women Sweet Briar College. The PIs hypothesize that this attendance to the socio-cultural aspects in the design and development of both programs, which focuses on achieving self-efficacy of the students, attributes to the 70-90% retention rates of females in these programs. This work will identify specific components of the two programs to both improve the understanding of the issues which are resulting in more women entering and staying in engineering/pre-engineering programs, and to also identify components from these existing programs for replication in other programs. Three groups will participate in this research study: females and males from the high school, and female undergraduates from the college. Both quantitative and qualitative measures will be used to evaluate the gender related outcomes of the programs. Factors influencing changes in beliefs as well as factors influencing student decisions to remain in the program will be investigated. Data from the female students will be compared with responses from the control group, the male students, to specifically identify factors that are unique to the females. Improving retention will contribute to increasing the participation of women in engineering programs, which will increase the number and diversity of engineering students who will enter the workforce. This project will evaluate components leading to the high retention rates of female students in two programs, disseminate the results through multiple venues, apply the results to improve the activities of the existing programs, and facilitate the replication of strategies in new initiatives. The partnership of the research team will facilitate dissemination among scholars and practitioners in multiple STEM education disciplines, gender studies, and also the education community at the high school and college/university level.