Conference Session

Potpourri Session

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jessica Buck, Jackson State University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

increasing their representation in the non-traditional fieldsof study and are becoming more knowledgeable of technology’s multi-facet components,there still remains significant under-representation of females in areas such as IndustrialTechnology. Nelson (2004) 33 indicated that lack of female representation in technologymay be due to a threefold purpose: “(1) women of the world lack knowledge oftechnology, (2) technology alienates and often exploits women, and (3) decisions abouttechnology are made without women’s voices” (p.2). This is reflected from Mayer’s(1995)27assertion that females comprise only 30 percent of the industrial workforce. Thisglobally illustrates moderate but consistent initiatives. The U. S. Department of Labor(2003)38 reported

Conference Session

Poster Session

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Amy Bentow, American Society of Mechanical Engineers; Richard Blais, Project Lead the Way; Laura Bottomley, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; Catherine Didion, National Academy of Engineering; Norman Fortenberry, National Academy of Engineering; Christina Vogt, National Academy of Engineering

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

project management knowledge into a comprehensive suite of professionaldevelopment tools.Research on teacher learning suggests that online professional development for teachers should focus onexaminations of practice, promote reflection, and be coupled with classroom teaching. What remainsunknown is how to create an online education system that is also simultaneously applicable to hundredsof pre-engineering and engineering teachers nationwide from K-12 to higher education.The Need for High Quality Professional DevelopmentA potentially large part of the EEES challenge requires that teaching NOT be viewed as a set of quicktricks and simple fixes. It must embody a comprehensive set of modules that synthesize what one knowsabout course content with

Conference Session

Climate Issues for Women Students

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Stephen Krause, Arizona State University; Dale Baker, Arizona State University; Chell Roberts, Arizona State University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

content knowledge. The studio course inwhich she was enrolled required introductory physics and calculus skills. Her physics and mathbackground was adequate to perform well with this type of content. She was interested inlearning engineering skills and concepts. On the other hand, her goal in taking the course was toexplore and learn more about the engineering learning environment without strong intentions topursue an engineering degree. This reflected a “typical” freshman student’s uncertainty inchoosing engineering as a career.There were three sources of data for this study: 1) the researcher’s observations and journalentries, 2) the researcher’s assessment of her self-efficacy, and 3) the self-assessment papers shewrote as assignments for the

Conference Session

Potpourri Session

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mara Wasburn, Purdue University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

engineers. Thisprobably reflects their appearances on several types of television dramas including crime, law,mystery, and science fiction. The only two occupational roles in which the majority ofrespondents had not seen actresses were computer technician and engineer. This is certainly due,at least in part, to the comparative rarity that such roles appear in any variety of programming.When decisions are being made as to the careers to assign female characters in televisioncomedies, dramas, soap operas, and even commercials, having those characters portrayed asengineers or computer technicians would take advantage of a particular opportunity to establishwomen in technology as a part of the natural order of things.Table 1Question: Would you tell

Conference Session

Recruitment and Retention Topics

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Susan Lord, University of San Diego; Michelle Camacho, University of San Diego

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

it.Feminist pedagogy strives for a more egalitarian classroom where power is shared betweenteacher and student learners; this must include self-reflection of teachers, acknowledgingteachers and students as learners and knowers thereby seeing the role of the professor more asguide than expert and valuing the voices of individual students. Rather than serving as the all-knowing deliverer of truth, the teacher is a guide for student learning… While teachers are encouraged to enrich syllabi by choosing materials that will appeal to a wide range of students and that cover areas that include the students’ subjectivities, students are encouraged to comment upon and negotiate syllabi, course

Conference Session

Recruitment and Retention Topics

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Elizabeth Godfrey, University of Auckland

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

discipline, reflecting international trends. This paper suggests that a study ofthese disciplinary subcultures may clarify the persistence of this differential participation ,and lead to the formulation of new approaches to increasing women’s participation inengineering education.Introduction Is it a self-fulfilling prophecy that engineering disciplines with more women develop cultures that attract more women? Can, and should, this pattern be disrupted?These questions arose in the context of a cultural analysis of engineering education, whichprimarily sought to explore the interaction of the participation of women (the feminine) witha culture which has often been named as masculine (i.e. not feminine). The masculine natureof the culture of

Conference Session

Perspectives for Women Faculty

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Elizabeth Creamer, Virginia Tech; Margaret Layne, Virginia Tech

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

faculty members in other disciplines inperceptions about the items in the work-life scale. By and large, most faculty members agreesomewhat with items in the Work-Life Scale (women=2.58; men=2.95; engineers=2.90; non-engineers=2.95). Page 12.593.5Table 3 displays the Pearson Correlation Coefficient results from four separate analyses. Acorrelation coefficient is a statistical measure that reflects the degree to which high or low scoreson one variable tend to match high or low scores on another variable. Values for correlationcoefficients range from -1 to +1. Values between .30 and .49 are interpreted as moderatelystrong; .50 or greater

Conference Session

Perceptions of Women's Success in STEM

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Maria Brunette, University of Massachusetts-Lowell; paula rayman, University of Massachusetts-Lowell; meg bond, University of Massachusetts-Lowell; Lu Yuan, University of Massachusetts-Lowell

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

followed the same coding technique to the end of each of the source documents.The descriptions of the major nodes were later modified to reflect the participants’ ideasmore accurately and comprehensively when coding the rest of the source documents.Additionally, new sub nodes were added whenever the analyst felt that the contents of thedocument did not match the existing sub nodes.Step 3: Node Structure Modification: After finishing coding all of the documents, theanalyst browsed the node and subnode categories and paid more attention to thosesubnodes that had few passages (In other words, the subnodes that were very infrequentlycoded.) The analyst reread the contents more carefully and tried to recategorize them byshaping and merging the subnodes

Conference Session

The Impact of Curriculum on the Retention of Women Students

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

David Keathly, University of North Texas; Robert Akl, University of North Texas; Ryan Garlick, University of North Texas

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

investigators conducted a post camp survey polling both parents and students todetermine the long term educational and career plans for each participant, as well as the impactof their camp experience and interest in future activities of a similar nature. The results from theexit surveys are further reinforced by this data, which shows that camp experiences resulted inmore deep-seated influence on school performance and interest after an “incubation” period ofsix months or more in which to absorb and reflect on the knowledge and skills obtained duringRobocamp. Table 4 illustrates the student responses to selected questions on the post campsurvey, and Table 5 indicates responses from the parent survey.The student responses illustrated in Table 4 are

Conference Session

K-12 Programs (Co-sponsored by K-12 Division)

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Lynn Fujioka, isisHawaii and Women in Technology; Sheryl Hom, isisHawaii and Women in Technology; Leslie Wilkins, Maui Economic Development Board

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

. Leveraged programs, i.e., offline events to attract grant monies. For example, for the “What is an Engineer?” project funded by the Engineering Information Foundation, WIT partnered with the UH Society of Women Engineers to present an event to middle and high school girls. The taped interviews of panel members reflecting Hawaii’s diversity will be edited and DVDs distributed free to participating schools and counselors for future reference. Leveraged resources or the “clearinghouse” approach. While in search for new eMentoring resources, additional opportunities have been created such as guest speakers for school and isisHawaii offline events; site visits for students; job shadowing; industry

Conference Session

The Impact of Curriculum on the Retention of Women Students

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Rose Marra, University of Missouri; Barbara Bogue, Pennsylvania State University; Kelly Rodgers, University of Missouri; Demei Shen, University of Missouri

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

major barrier to completing their engineering degree 10. Women who leaveengineering consistently express less confidence in their abilities than the men and women whostay, regardless of the fact that their actual performance is the same or better than their peers whodo not leave 8,11. The discouraging nature of low-self confidence is reflected in the fact thatwomen faced with actually failing a course are likely to leave the engineering programaltogether, while their male peers are more likely to repeat the course and continue to pursuetheir engineering degree.While gender differences in “confidence” are often reported 7, studies that examine genderdifferences in self-efficacy of students already enrolled in engineering programs show

Conference Session

Perspectives for Women Faculty

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Nicole Hawkes, WiSE / University of Southern California; Jean Morrison, University of Southern California; Cauligi Raghavendra, University of Southern California

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

USC in hiring and promoting women faculty is significant, relative to where it started.With approximately 16,000 undergraduate and 15,000 graduate and professional students, USCprides itself on the diversity of its student body. In 2005, undergraduates students were 50.9%female to 49.1% male (graduate students 46.2% female to 53.8% male), 44.2% identify as non-white/caucasian (graduate students 42.4%) and international students comprise 8.6% ofundergraduates and 25.3% of graduate students, representing 108 countries. To better reflect thediversity of its students and to meet a standard of excellence in education that is tied to diversity,USC has embraced an aggressive faculty diversity program, influenced in part by the success ofthe WiSE

Conference Session

Recruitment and Retention Topics

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Rose Mary Cordova-Wentling, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign; Steven Thomas, Lockheed Martin Corporation

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

4(Information Technology Association of America, 2003). Prior employment research on genderstratification demonstrates that this under representation is a reflection of organizational andsocial structures, rather than essentialist generalizations about gender group characteristics(Trauth, Quesenberry, & Morgan, 2004). As a result, it is necessary to understand thecharacteristics of the IT workplace environment, and in particular, the workplace environmentalfactors that hinder and assist the career progression of women in IT. A study by Wardell,Sawyer, Reagor, and Mitory (2005), found that women are nearly three times as likely as men toleave the IT workforce. Their findings showed that although women are able to gain thenecessary skills

Conference Session

An International Perspective

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Hasmik Gharibyan, California Polytechnic State University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

that in the USA the female retention rate in CS programs is not very high; aconsiderable number of women change their mind about having a career in CS soon afterentering the program. When setting up the study, we were curious about the female retention ratein CS programs in Armenia. That information is even more interesting now, in the light of abovepresented data.Through interviews with university administrators, we established that in Armenia changingone’s major is an extremely rare act; apparently, in the soviet educational system the procedureof changing a major is so complicated that it is hardly ever practiced. Therefore, there is noofficial data reflecting student satisfaction with their major. Nevertheless, our survey results shed

Conference Session

An International Perspective

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mary Anderson-Rowland, Arizona State University; Bianca Bernstein, Arizona State University; Nancy Felipe Russo, Arizona State University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

. Actually this argument is also astrong reason why engineering needs more women trained in engineering to increasediversity in the values and perspectives of engineering personnel and to change methodsand processes of delivering material to future generations of engineers.In 2001, Lazarus, Ritter, and Ambrose underscored the seriousness of the lack of womenin engineering and science doctoral programs in “The Woman’s Guide to Navigating thePh.D. in Engineering & Science.”2 They reported that of the 5,919 engineeringdoctorates awarded in 1998, only 769 (13%) were earned by women. These figures donot reflect the continued under representation of domestic women in engineeringprograms. Table 1 presents the national summary of PhD degrees in

Conference Session

Perceptions of Women's Success in STEM

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Elizabeth Litzler, University of Washington; Catherine Claiborne, University of Washington; Suzanne G. Brainard, University of Washington

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

discusses the factors which have an effect oninstitutionalization.Factors Associated with InstitutionalizationIn the literature four main themes often show up in definitions of institutionalization. These arevalue, leadership, stability, and diffusion. These four themes are discussed in detail below. Theauthors use these definitions in the literature to compile four important factors associated withinstitutionalization.In a classic work by Selznick34, he defined institutionalize as “to infuse with value”. He alsowrote that when organizations are institutionalized this means that they are established andconsidered valuable. Institutionalization then reflects the values of those who are part of theorganization, and results in the need to continue the

Conference Session

Climate Issues for Women Students

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Xiang-Yun Du, Aalborg University; Anette Kolmos, Aalborg University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

2000, pp345-359.12. Kanter, R. M. (1993), (2nd edition) Men and Women of the Corporation. Basic Books, Now York.13. Kolmos, A. (1996), Reflection on Project Work and Problem-based Learning. European Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 21, No.2.14. Kolmos, A. (1992), Metacognitive Aspects in A Group-based Project Work at Technical Universities, Contributions GASAT, the Netherlands.15. Kolmos, A.. (1989), Køn og viden i ingeniøruddannelsen, Institut for samfundsudvikling og planlægning. Skriftserie nr. 28, AUC. PhD-afhandling, 195 sider.16. Kolmos, A., Fink, F, and Krogh, L. (2004), (eds) The Aalborg PBL Model – Progress, Diversity and Challenges, Aalborg University Press17. Kolmos, A. og Rasmussen, P.(1994), De studerendes

Conference Session

MentorNet

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mary Jo Wellenstein, Milwaukee School of Engineering; Sandra Courter, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Susannah Sandrin, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh; Karen Showers, Wisconsin Technical College System; Leslie Wilkins, Maui Economic Development Board; Jennifer Chou-Green, MentorNet; Carol Muller, MentorNet; Laurie Mayberry, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Ann Bloor, Milwaukee School of Engineering; Isla Yap, Maui Economic Development Board

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

over the next three years growing to the point where today it servesthe nine public institutions in the state, seven community colleges and two universities,ixproviding their students with access to MentorNet programs. Between the start of thepartnership in 2000 and January 2007, 236 students across these nine institutions have beenmatched in mentoring relationships through MentorNet’s One-on-One program. Recruitmentefforts are spearheaded by a program manager from the sponsoring Women in Technologyproject who cultivates a local campus representative to provide ongoing recruitment. Eachcampus reflects its unique community, so it has been important that recruitment strategies arecustomized to meet differing campus needs. Faculty, staff and

Conference Session

K-12 Programs (Co-sponsored by K-12 Division)

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mary Virnoche, Humboldt State University; Elizabeth Eschenbach, Humboldt State University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

Conference Session

Climate Issues for Women Students

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Yong Zeng, University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign; John R. Duncan, Clemson University

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

Conference Session

The Impact of Curriculum on the Retention of Women Students

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Lisa Romkey, University of Toronto

Tagged Divisions

Women in Engineering

is surprisingly great – boys expressed a much higherexpectation of success, and girls continued to express uncertainty in their abilities, even afterscoring high on a test. Karp and Shakeshaft32 (1997) found that males dominate classroomconversation and are generally more confident in the classroom setting. This issue ofconfidence is a serious one, as confidence is often found to be precursor to achievement.The second theme that emerged from the interview results reflects issues of confidence andprogram choice. The interview subjects made interesting comments about why females arechoosing not to pursue engineering:“I was really worried about it in high school. I was good in english…I had good marks in