A Systematic Literature Review of Women’s Epistemologies in Engineering Education

Kaitlyn Thomas; Adam Kirn; Kelly Cross

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Conference: 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Publication Date: August 23, 2022
Start Date: June 26, 2022
End Date: June 29, 2022
Conference Session: WIED: Analysis, Challenges, Success, and Impacts
Page Count: 14
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--41412
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/41412
Download Count: 406

Paper Authors

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Kaitlyn Thomas University of Nevada, Reno

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Kaitlyn is an engineering education doctoral student at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her background is in civil engineering. Her research focus is women in engineering and mental health.

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Adam Kirn University of Nevada, Reno

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TBD

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Kelly Cross University of Nevada, Reno

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Dr. Kelly J. Cross is a data-informed, transformational mission-focused culturally responsive practitioner, researcher, and educational leader. She earned her Bachelors of Science in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University in 2007 and Masters of Science in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Cincinnati in 2011. Cross completed her doctoral program in the Engineering Education department at Virginia Tech in 2015 and worked as a post-doctoral researcher with the Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Dr. Cross worked in the Department of Bioengineering working to redesign the curriculum through the NSF funded Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) grant. She is a member of the ASEE Leadership Virtual Community of Practice (LVCP) that organizes and facilitates Safe Zone Training workshops. Dr. Cross has conducted workshops on managing personal bias in STEM, online and in-person, in addition to faculty training on power and privilege. Her research interests include diversity and inclusion in STEM, intersectionality, teamwork and communication skills, assessment, and identity construction. Her teaching philosophy focuses on student centered approaches such as problem-based learning and culturally relevant pedagogy. Dr. Cross’ complimentary professional activities promote inclusive excellence through collaboration. She is an NSF CAREER awardee, delivered multiple distinguished lectures, and has received a national mentoring award.

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Abstract

Currently and historically, women are underrepresented in engineering. Engineering education research (EER) has explored possible explanations as to why this phenomenon persists, including but not limited to hinderances to identity development, lack of belongingness, and the epistemological underpinnings that are fundamental to engineering education. In this paper, we will focus specifically on these epistemological foundations in relation to women’s epistemologies and how different ideas about knowledge and learning relate to why women are underrepresented in engineering. In the space of engineering education, we strive to create an environment that fosters inclusive epistemologies for students to succeed. However, educational research suggests that women’s epistemologies fundamentally differ from men’s because of factors like socialization, cultural influences, and experiences of marginalization that are common for women. Because engineering began as an exclusively middle-class white male field and remains male-dominated, male epistemologies shape the default pathways to understanding in engineering education. Women’s epistemologies may differ from fundamental ways of knowing that engineering education is built on. Based on this difference, we believe there is an epistemological mismatch between women and the engineering field. To begin to investigate this claim, we conducted a literature review as part of a larger study to understand what has been studied in EER regarding women’s epistemologies. The purpose of this paper is to explore the landscape of women’s epistemologies in recent EER. Our guiding research question is: “How have women’s epistemologies been studied in published engineering education research?” To begin this literature review, we searched through the ASEE conference proceedings database (also known as PEER) for student women’s epistemologies from 2016 to 2021. We chose this time frame to focus on current research of epistemologies in EER. The keywords used in the search were “Epistemology + Women + Engineering.” We focused on engineering students to highlight the epistemologies that relate to learning rather than teaching. Once a preliminary set of articles was identified, we performed secondary and tertiary rounds of exclusion to scope the range of articles included in the study that addressed the research question. We performed a categorical analysis to compare each article across multiple groupings of attributes. The result of this literature review was a table, in which we extracted information from the papers based on seven categories: framework, methodology, population, instrument, main result, related concepts, and unit of analysis. This table allows for easy access to each paper to understand the main points of the study and whether or not the authors related epistemologies to other concepts in EER, including student outcomes. A highlight of our results concerns the “unit of analysis” category, which shows how student epistemologies have been studied from a multitude of perspectives, including program-level effects on student epistemologies to individual-level epistemological differences between students. As a result, the single word of epistemology has come to possess a multitude of meanings in EER. Future work involves analyzing these units of analysis to create a unified language around student epistemologies in engineering to better the field’s understanding of the topic.

Citation
Format

Thomas, K., & Kirn, A., & Cross, K. (2022, August), A Systematic Literature Review of Women’s Epistemologies in Engineering Education Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41412

TY - CPAPER
AB - Currently and historically, women are underrepresented in engineering. Engineering education research (EER) has explored possible explanations as to why this phenomenon persists, including but not limited to hinderances to identity development, lack of belongingness, and the epistemological underpinnings that are fundamental to engineering education. In this paper, we will focus specifically on these epistemological foundations in relation to women’s epistemologies and how different ideas about knowledge and learning relate to why women are underrepresented in engineering. In the space of engineering education, we strive to create an environment that fosters inclusive epistemologies for students to succeed. However, educational research suggests that women’s epistemologies fundamentally differ from men’s because of factors like socialization, cultural influences, and experiences of marginalization that are common for women. Because engineering began as an exclusively middle-class white male field and remains male-dominated, male epistemologies shape the default pathways to understanding in engineering education. Women’s epistemologies may differ from fundamental ways of knowing that engineering education is built on. Based on this difference, we believe there is an epistemological mismatch between women and the engineering field. To begin to investigate this claim, we conducted a literature review as part of a larger study to understand what has been studied in EER regarding women’s epistemologies. The purpose of this paper is to explore the landscape of women’s epistemologies in recent EER. Our guiding research question is: “How have women’s epistemologies been studied in published engineering education research?”
To begin this literature review, we searched through the ASEE conference proceedings database (also known as PEER) for student women’s epistemologies from 2016 to 2021. We chose this time frame to focus on current research of epistemologies in EER. The keywords used in the search were “Epistemology + Women + Engineering.” We focused on engineering students to highlight the epistemologies that relate to learning rather than teaching. Once a preliminary set of articles was identified, we performed secondary and tertiary rounds of exclusion to scope the range of articles included in the study that addressed the research question. We performed a categorical analysis to compare each article across multiple groupings of attributes.
The result of this literature review was a table, in which we extracted information from the papers based on seven categories: framework, methodology, population, instrument, main result, related concepts, and unit of analysis. This table allows for easy access to each paper to understand the main points of the study and whether or not the authors related epistemologies to other concepts in EER, including student outcomes. A highlight of our results concerns the “unit of analysis” category, which shows how student epistemologies have been studied from a multitude of perspectives, including program-level effects on student epistemologies to individual-level epistemological differences between students. As a result, the single word of epistemology has come to possess a multitude of meanings in EER. Future work involves analyzing these units of analysis to create a unified language around student epistemologies in engineering to better the field’s understanding of the topic.
AU - Kaitlyn Thomas
AU - Adam Kirn
AU - Kelly Cross
CY - Minneapolis, MN
DA - 2022/08/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - A Systematic Literature Review of Women’s Epistemologies in Engineering Education
UR - https://peer.asee.org/41412
DO - 10.18260/1-2--41412
ER -