Paper ID #24862Board 135: Reflecting on 20 Years of the Attracting Women into Engineering(AWE) WorkshopMiss Mahaa Mayeesha Ahmed, Rowan University Mahaa Ahmed is currently a senior at Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ studying Biological Sciences and Philosophy and Religion Studies with a minor in Dance. She is a student worker in the Outreach Office of the Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering and helps coordinate K-12 STEM programs during the academic year as well as STEM camps during the summer. She will be pursuing a MS in Environmental Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health upon graduation.Ms. Melanie
Engineering. Her research interests are in recruitment and retention of underrepresented groups in computing and engineering fields. c American Society for Engineering Education, 2018 Reflections from Past Chairs of the Women in Engineering DivisionAbstractIn celebration of 125 years of the American Society of Engineering Education, past Chairs of theWomen in Engineering Division (WIED), Beth Holloway, Donna Llewellyn, Sarah Rajala, andNoel Schulz convened in a focused panel that looked back through the division’s history. To helparchive the historical perspective of these leaders, this paper was developed to help the formerChairs focus their perspectives with guiding questions. One additional chair, who could
playing field can help combatthose disparities. For instance, inclusion of service learning has also been shown to increaseretention of women and underrepresented minorities in engineering 10,11. Other approaches suchas pairing female students with mentors and creating discussion groups that explore diversity andinclusion have also been shown to help, as was done in this study.Methodology:Participants shared experiences during weekly discussion and through journaling about howgender norms in engineering and the sciences tend to reflect masculine values, experiences andlife situations. Through these discussions, participants learned to address underlyingassumptions, norms, and practices to change the culture for all members, men and women
” group, led by the secondauthor. The group provided a forum for brainstorming ideas and the course provided a platformfor testing these strategies. Four recommendations evolved from this effort: 1.) Education onteam function and bias in team dynamics is helpful. 2.) Teamwork skills and strategies forcollaboration and conflict resolution need to be taught. 3.) Mentoring and engaging withstudents is an important aspect of the process and can be enhanced to better serve women. 4.)Reflection and self-assessment exercises can be integrated to build self-efficacy and confidencein students. Assessment was done using data collected from mid-term evaluations, peerevaluations, self-assessment exercises, input from industry judges, and teaching evaluations
overcomingstruggles, and described their negative perceptions of engineering before entering the major. Participants with alllevels of CSE highlighted their own creativity with respect to the performing and visual arts, before reflecting oninnovation as creative. Most participants with low CSE described their lack of creativity in the arts. They alsodiscussed being “intimidated” by negative classroom experiences more than their peers with higher levels of CSE.Those with low CSE were also exposed to more engineering centered experiences in high school, and most had aparent who worked in the profession. It is expected that this research will provide a more comprehensiveunderstanding of CSE, perceptions of engineering as a creative field, and the educational
Demanding Organized Engaging Approachable Patient Exciting Interested Motivating Prepared Respectful Energetic Understanding Fun PersonableImpact of Gender in ClassroomGenerally, gender is perceived as a negative for women in the classroom as it pertains tostudents’ perceptions of instructor effectiveness, as reflected in student evaluations. Forinstance, MacNell et al. (2014) found that students rated an instructor with a male identity higherthan female instructor possessing a female identity for online courses regardless of theinstructor’s actual gender. When female
-telling, andpeer mentoring; and (4) Physiological states through reflections, I-CAN statements, power poses,and fine and performing art.Data analysis of pre and post-tests, pre and post self-reporting 5-point Likert scale surveys, focusgroup sessions, and reflection sheets showed that this program had been effective. The 91%increase in Sustainable Construction Engineering knowledge, 7.41% increase in self-efficacy,and 7.35% increase in STEM attitudes were all statistically significant (p<0.01). The girls’strongest sources of self-efficacy were from observing peers (vicarious experiences),encouragement from parents (verbal persuasion), positive attitudes from fine and performing arts(physiological states), and continuous improvement and
the scienceprofessions, researchers have identified an enduring strong association of science as a disciplinefor men [4]. This association of gender and career field also impacts young people before theycommit to a career path: middle schoolers have parroted the assumption that engineering is acareer for men [8].The Media and Women in STEMThese disciplinary norms and perceptions are reflected in the ways in which, and if, women inSTEM are portrayed in art, media, and popular culture around the world [3, 7, 9, 10, 11]. Themedia reflects the truth of underrepresentation in STEM [7, 10]. Of the 391 most popular STEM-themed YouTube channels, only 32 hosts presented themselves as female [9]. In acomprehensive study of entertainment media
project was LED Dexterity Challenge. A survey wasconducted to collect data right after students completed each workshop to evaluate the content ofthe workshop. 169 girl scouts members participated in the STEM program and took the survey inthe past two years. The survey shows 95% students enjoyed Electrical Engineering workshopactivity while 98% of the students enjoyed Computer Engineering. Students reflected that theywould like to participate more STEM related activities in the future.The program represents part of our university’s ongoing efforts to interest young women inSTEM and is part of the Girl Scouts' “fun with purpose” K-12 curriculum. That initiativeintroduces scouts of every age to STEM to inspire them to embrace and celebrate
& Poth, 2018). One of the challenges in qualitativeresearch is to convince the reader that the analytical process is focused, clear, and defined. Todemonstrate this, the data analysis spiral was utilized as a guiding framework in the analysisprocess. This structured format guided the analytic process and allowed for a high level of focusand attention towards the participants’ account and reflection of their experiences.ResultsThe IPA approach provided an in-depth and interpretative investigation into the personalexperiences of the participants and allowed the participants to reflect on the significance of theirexperiences during their choice and persistence in engineering. The study’s in-depth analysisrevealed several recurrent themes from
finalized. The questions were personalized for each interviewee andreviewed by the IEEE Historian. Following changes, the participating students sent the oralhistory questions to the interviewee prior to the interview.A standard set of interview components included the following sections: Introduction, EarlyLife/Education, Career, Awards/Honors, Gender-Related Questions, Reflection/Advice, andConclusion. Table I (shown on the next page) shows the structure of a typical oral historyinterview. Excluding an introduction and conclusion, the five general sections covered in theinterview are Early Life/Education, Career, Awards/Honors, Gender, and Reflection/Advice.Questions are personalized for each interviewee. Questions in the Early Life/Education
programs, etc.) haveimpacted the success of these women, it was important to have distinct research sites so that Icould examine the effects of various policies and procedures on the careers of the researchparticipants within the context of each institution’s programs and policies.Population and Sample I interviewed women faculty who have their primary appointment in the engineeringschool each campus (since some faculty have dual appointments). The objective for each site was to interview at least fifty percent of the faculty so that my sample would reflect the variedexperience of tenured women faculty at each site. Table 1-1 describes the population and sampleat each research site and Table 1-2 provides employment and demographic
for our programming efforts. First, we modeled the long-term effect ofour programming efforts on the percentage of females in the incoming residency class assumingthat we maintain our current level of programming indefinitely. We then adjusted selectparameters in the model to reflect “worst-case” assumptions for recruiting and retention inorthopaedic residency (see Table 2). This analysis is particularly important because our currentprogram evaluation data – on which the model parameters are based – reflect intermediaterecruitment and retention outcomes, e.g., intention to pursue orthopaedic surgery for high schoolparticipants rather than actual matriculation rates into residency. Our worst-case assumptionswere as follows: (1) 10% decrease in
throughprocesses of community-building, organizing, and education, creating transformativeexperiences in democratic and reflective spaces that directly address root causes. This mayinclude every-day actions such as cooking, gardening, building, establishing space, as well asperformance and creative output.In conversation with Highlander’s practices of creative resistance and agency building, we alsotake from the foundational work of Imarisha Walidah and Adrienne Maree Brown regarding thepractice of emergent strategies for community organizing and enacting change [16]. Brown andWalidah have established the technique of future visioning through the writing of science fictionnarratives that enable social critique as well as creative resistance and playful
colleagues. The role and importance ofthese complex factors are apparent in panelists responses. Individual responses to each of theseeded questions are provided followed by a summative and reflective discussion edited by allpanelists. 1. Did you encounter a period in your career where you experienced reduced satisfaction with your work situation? What were the strategies you employed to move beyond this period and self-author the next phase of your career?Panelist 1: Yes, I reached a point as a research active faculty who had just achieved fullprofessor where I realized that years of hard work would sometimes net a low number ofcitations of the published work. We motivated the research with ideas of how this knowledgecould impact and
of us. (Mohr p.xxvii-iii)The book presents tools and concepts to support women to share their ideas, their voices, andtake actions that align with their aspirations and life’s purpose. It is important to note thatMohr’s definition of ‘playing big’ is not about traditional ideas like wealth generation, prestige,or power. Instead, it is about taking bold, unencumbered strides toward work that is meaningfulto the individual.Book club objectives and organizationOne of the goals of the book club was to carve out time for participants to reflect on their pastexperiences and uncover what playing big means to them. Undergraduate engineering andcomputer science students’ schedules tend to be fast paced and packed with curricular, co-curricular, and
collected in the form of an online survey (via Qualtrics), a version of which was firstdeveloped and implemented by Casto et al.11. The survey used for this study consisted ofquestion topics ranging from identity and personality to authenticity and persistence. The BigFive Personality model was the main framework used to measure personality. More specifically,students were asked to reflect on their personality during two different contexts or situations -“non-academic settings” and “engineering academic settings”.The adjective checklist approach was used in the development of the survey, previouslygenerated and used by Casto et al., Table 111. This approach uses personality traits, words, orphrases for self-description and is stated to be simple
. Section V provides a conclusion and implications.II. MethodsThis study was conducted by a combination of a survey of the faculty advisors/counselorscommunity within SWE, and through the analysis of written reflections provided by the authorsof the paper, all of whom are faculty advisors and/or counselors. In 2017, this group of eightadvisors and/or counselors identified factors that contribute to their level of involvement inrunning student organizations. Their individual experiences were shared with respect to their rolein the section’s long-term and short-term goals for the success and sustainability of studentorganizations.The survey was developed based on the goals of the study, with several rounds of review andrevision to ensure that the
to making it better, faster, or more efficient. • Engineers help shape the future. They use the latest science, tools, and technology to bring ideas to life. • Engineering is essential to our health, happiness, and safety. From the grandest skyscrapers to microscopic medical devices, it is impossible to imagine life without engineering.These and other recommendations to “change the conversation” or “embrace a broader vision” ofengineering bespeak a realization that the profession is not well understood or reflective of thesociety it serves. Organizations in the engineering community have tested female-inclusiveapplications and strategies in outreach and awareness efforts with limited success. The authenticadult (i.e. Baby
as a frameworkfor promoting professional development and community building for graduate students.Building on the themes of the book, this program sought to promote reflection amongparticipants about the choices and actions that women can take to position themselves forsuccess—and encouraged exploration of students’ personal vision of success. Results of pre-and post-tests, along with observational data gathered by the facilitators, indicated that studentswere concerned largely by two topics: concerns about how to balance their career ambition andtheir goals for a fulfilling personal life (whatever that may be), and how to have positive andbeneficial relationship with mentors or advisors. Students also shared their challenges andfrustration
participatingstudents graduated with a STEM degree. Interviews collected in this project are previouslypublished on the IEEE Engineering Technology and History Wiki (ETHW). Following the oralhistory interviews, the students write reflections to answer the following three research questions(RQ). RQ#1 is “What are the key factors that led to the success of the distinguished leaders?.”RQ#2 is “What are the crucial skills that enabled their success?.” RQ#3 is “What is the impacton my career path?”One objective of this paper is for the participating female students, who are majoring in STEMfields, to present their reflections on the three research questions. A second objective is for thestudents to describe the impact, if any, that carrying out interviews of
, practices, and cultures that reflect expandedperspectives on gender, diversity, and intersectional identities. In order to better understand the role(s) of such a course in an engineering student'seducation and how engineering education considers these issues, the instructor team invited twoundergraduate researchers to undertake projects in support of these goals. One of these students(Amber Levine) was tasked with identifying other courses across the U.S. with similar subjectmatter and learning objectives (“EEL Related Courses Study”); she found 13 courses acrosstwelve institutions that connected issues of diversity and culture to engineering and were targetedto engineering students (Levine, 2016). The other student (Chloe Wiggins, who is
office. According to our records, 288 employees opened the survey and 175 completed it.Please see table one for a summary of our sample characteristics.Our sample is younger and less experienced than engineers in the country with a slight over-representation of chemical and mechanical engineers. The gender split (74% men, 26% women)reflects that of Canadian engineering graduates over the past two decades. We used Cronbach’salpha to test the reliability of survey scales using the full complement of data collected (n=75, 31survey items, 3 scales) and found that all three scales met the social science reliability thresholdof 0.7 [12]. After analyzing data related to the three engineering leadership orientations andanswering our initial set of
Tool in Addressing Gender BiasAbstractAfter decades of addressing the gender bias in engineering and computer fields, there areexpectations, particularly by women in these fields, that the biases would have been eradicated 1long before 2014. However, an Implicit Association assignment addressing the Gender Gap inmultiple recent semesters of a Computer Ethics class produced results which the author foundboth surprising and disturbing in the biases reflected, and justified, by current students. As astrategy in dealing with this, Problem Based Learning (PBL) was used as the basis of a moreextensive, team-based project in the Spring 2014 iteration of the class. The three
idea about history and grandeur of thecampus and also to let them visualize college life in general. On Friday, June 24, UniversityAdmissions Office representatives came over to meet with the students and parents to explainthem the admission procedure and the financial aid opportunities for eligible students. Program Evaluation, Effectiveness, and Survey Results Daily and program surveys were conducted to assess the effectiveness of miniGEMS 2016. An overall understanding of the skills needed to be an engineer were reflected in the answers on the daily surveys, the lab notebooks, the final essay and presentation, miniGEMS summative survey, and results from the post-survey data. The daily surveys provided quality control daily
to empower the students and to provide skills to navigate theirexperiences in an engineering workforce. Peer coaching is introduced and implemented throughexamples, training on key coaching skills, and five opportunities for the students to practice theseskills with one another.Mixed methods design is employed to identify emerging themes which can form the basis offuture theories and research as well as to assess the effectiveness of integrating peer coachinginto the classroom. Data analysis includes reflective journals from the perspective of servingboth as the coach and coachee, pre- and post-course surveys, as well as weekly post-classsurveys. While qualitative analysis aids in identifying theoretical frameworks for future studies,results
implementationactivities.Dialogues was grounded in an institutional strategic planning process and occurred as part of arange of gender equity activities implemented during an NSF funded ADVANCE project. TheADVANCE program provides significant funding to institutional change efforts that recruit,retain and promote women faculty in science, technology, engineering and math fields. TheDialogues process consisted of a series of sessions (ranging from three to eight) that engageddepartmental faculty in a total of eight hours of facilitated reflection activities and discussionsabout implementing the university’s strategic plan to meet the vision of the respectivedepartment. At each meeting, facilitators guided faculty through a series of activities aimed atdefining the
’, ormeeting others’ needs. She did not feel there was anyone in her department she could go tofor help or support. It was not an isolated experience.This story was told to other female faculty members as part of a series of ‘storytellingcircles,’ which were organized in order to gain insight into the careers and experiences offemale faculty members in science and engineering fields. While many stories told during thegroup interviews reflected a lack of consideration for family-related responsibilities, the oneabove reveals clearly the influence of a department head. It reveals a significant lack ofconsideration for the participant immediately after she gave birth to her child.Time and again, we heard stories detailing the ways in which department
thatinform women’s decisions to enter each respective sector. More importantly, there is vanishinglylittle work on women’s decisions to enter different engineering careers in contexts where womenare well-represented.In our paper, we discuss participation of women in engineering in Malaysia, a context wherewomen represent a high share of both academia and industry (e.g., overall, 45% of theengineering workforce) [3]. Findings from the 2013 Malaysian MWFCD Women in the LaborMarket Study conclude that women are about 46% of the public and 51% of the privateengineering, manufacturing, and construction work sector [4]. Studying the Malaysian contextwill help us gain purchase on the way choices are driven by “preferences for science” [5],reflective of
self-reflection about themselvesleads them to fall behind males in STEM fields like computing and engineering in high school[14][16]. According to a study by Riegel-Crumb (2011), children are “ […] aware of how theirskills do or do not match up to external expectations of their academic proficiency in math andscience” [15]. However, external factors can play an important role on students career aspirations[15]. Various reasons have been identified as having impact on female student major and careerchoices both positively and negatively. Students get positive inspiration from role models [17],interaction with teachers [18], and early exposure to STEM [19]. On the other hand, they getnegative influences from gender stereotypes [20], early gender