Baltimore , Maryland
June 25, 2023
June 25, 2023
June 28, 2023
Women in Engineering Division (WIED)
Diversity
13
10.18260/1-2--42358
https://peer.asee.org/42358
309
Monica Quezada-Espinoza is a professor and researcher at the School of Engineering at the Universidad Andres Bello in Santiago, Chile, where currently collaborates with the Educational and Academic Innovation Unit, UNIDA (for its acronym in Spanish), as an instructor in active learning methodologies. Her research interests involve university education in STEM areas, faculty and continuing professional development, research-based methodologies, community engagement projects, evaluation tools and technology, and gender studies in STEM education. https://orcid.org/0000- 0002-0383-0179
María Elena Truyol, Ph.D., is full professor and researcher of the Universidad Andrés Bello (UNAB). She graduated as physics teacher (for middle and high school), physics (M.Sc.) and Ph.D. in Physics at Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina. In 2013 she obtained a three-year postdoctoral position at the Universidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil. Her focus is set on educational research, physics education, problem-solving, design of instructional material, teacher training and gender studies. She teaches undergraduate courses related to environmental management, energy and fundamentals of industrial processes at the School of Engineering, UNAB. She currently is coordinating the Educational and Academic Innovation Unit at the School of Engineering (UNAB) that is engaged with the continuing teacher training in active learning methodologies at the three campuses of the School of Engineering (Santiago, Viña del Mar and Concepción, Chile). She authored several manuscripts in the science education area, joined several research projects, participated in international conferences with oral presentations and key note lectures and serves as referee for journals, funding institutions and associations.
Students' affective characteristics, such as motivation, attitudes, self-efficacy, expectations, and sense of belonging, are relevant topics for higher education research. Much research indicates that having a sense of belonging in academic, social, and community settings are critical to students' development, engagement, and persistence. Prior research on women's participation in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) careers discusses the need to improve their sense of belonging as a socio-cognitive variable related to the gender imbalance in participation in STEM areas. Women's sense of belonging is crucial to higher education institutions, especially in highly masculinized careers such as engineering. It increases academic motivation and can influence their success in higher education. However, statistics worldwide show that the increase in the sense of belonging and, thus, in the participation of women in STEM areas has not risen enough to reduce the gender gap. In the current research work, we present data collected over one semester in an Engineering School at a large private university in Chile. Our main objective is to diagnose and analyze the students' sense of belonging in social and academic areas, their self-efficacy, and perceived institutional support from a gender perspective. With a quantitative approach, survey data was collected to assess students' sense of belonging as engineering students. The validated survey consists of 33 items distributed in four constructs: 1) Sense of belonging-general, 2) sense of belonging-interactions, 3) Self-efficacy and 4) Perceived institutional support. From this, we identify and discuss the student's sense of belonging and how it interacts with self-efficacy and perceived institutional support. This research allows us to have evidence that supports the visibility and creation of initiatives on the services offered to students, which impact their sense of belonging.
Becerra-Cid, M., & Quezada-Espinoza, M., & Truyol, M. E. (2023, June), Belongingness of Chilean Engineering Students: A Gender Perspective Approach Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--42358
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