Pathways to Self-Efficacy and Retention of Women in Undergraduate Engineering

Northeastern University, Boston MA

Investigators

Abstract

Intellectual Merit: Northeastern University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, and the University of Wyoming will partner in a research study designed to investigate the hypothesis that women's participation in formal undergraduate engineering programs that provide work experiences while enrolled (e.g., cooperative education or internships), leads to enhanced self-efficacy and an increased likelihood of retention through graduation. Although all four schools offer cooperative education or internship programs, Northeastern University and Rochester Institute of Technology require them. Using a variety of survey research tools, this project seeks to isolate those factors and experiences that contribute most to the development of positive self-efficacy beliefs and, ultimately, to the retention of women in undergraduate engineering programs. The role of self-efficacy will be examined and compared to other factors in order to develop a model that demonstrates how demographic variables, work experiences, contextual supports, and three dimensions of self-efficacy (work, academic, and career) interact to predict retention. Self-efficacy theory has been used to explain the career development of women, especially in male-dominated careers such as engineering. Self-efficacy beliefs are considered the primary cognitive determinants of behavior, including whether a behavior will be initiated, how much effort will be expended, and how long behavior will be sustained in the face of obstacles. This research will expand the existing knowledge base about the role of work experiences and self-efficacy for women in undergraduate engineering programs by addressing the following hypotheses: - Self-efficacy is the principal predictor of retention of women in undergraduate engineering programs. - Cooperative education and internships, as formal work experience features of undergraduate programs, constitute a critical predictor of women?s retention directly and indirectly through their impact on self-efficacy. - Contextual support variables affect work, career, and academic self-efficacy as well as retention both directly and indirectly through self-efficacy. - Demographic variables have an independent effect on retention but also interact with contextual variables and with self-efficacy to indirectly affect retention. Data will be collected using a survey instrument featuring a work self-efficacy inventory. Each school will gather accurate retention figures by tracking individual student files instead of institutional methods that tend to use a "black box" approach of comparing the number of students entering in with the number of students graduating. The data will be analyzed using regression and path analyses to determine how the variables interact to predict retention. Broader Impacts: This study will have wide-ranging implications for undergraduate engineering programs. The resulting model will enable university administrators to discriminate among a variety of program supports, such as work experience and advising programs, and their relationship to retention. Many engineering colleges already offer cooperative education and internship programs but have little data about the impact of these programs or how to leverage them. This research provides a unique way to connect gender and self-efficacy theory to undergraduate engineering programs while addressing the critical student outcomes of efficacy (especially work self-efficacy) and degree attainment.