Female Student Attitudes Towards Engineering: Are They Influenced by the Roles They Take on Project Teams?

Malinda Zarske; Evan Wetzel; Christina Lacerenza

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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: 20
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--41456
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/41456
Download Count: 326

Paper Authors

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Malinda Zarske University of Colorado Boulder

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Dr. Malinda Zarske is the Chair of ASEE's Commission on P-12 Engineering Education. She is also a Teaching Professor in the Integrated Design Engineering program at the University of Colorado Boulder. She teaches undergraduate product design and core courses in engineering, as well as STEM education courses for pre-service teachers and professional development around equitable STEM teaching for inservice teachers.

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Evan Wetzel University of Colorado Boulder

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Christina Lacerenza University of Colorado Boulder

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Abstract

The increase of diversity in STEM fields is a growing conversation and source of concern for engineers. While universities report that the number of women students graduating with an engineering degree has increased, there still exists a surprising lack of women in engineering careers nationwide. Strategies such as active learning and collaborative learning have been at the forefront of curricular change, in part due to evidence that these interventions improve long-term material retention and critical thinking skills [2], [3]. Many engineering universities allow undergraduate students to take a hands-on project course during their first year or as a senior capstone as part of their degree, in which they work on a team with students from a variety of backgrounds to achieve a common goal. During these project courses, the students gain valuable experience working on teams and presenting their work to reviewers intended to prepare them for careers post-graduation. These courses are often evaluated through end-of semester surveys and questionnaires that query their course experience and skills gained. For several years, the first-year projects course in the University of Colorado Boulder’s College of Engineering and Applied Science has included additional questions around identity and intent to complete engineering careers in their course surveys.

Course surveys do not fully capture the quality of the students' experience in a project design course. While correlation of completion through subsequent engineering semesters exists, we posit that the courses may create a confidence gap due to perceived value of the student’s role on the team that impacts their identity and retention. Throughout this course, students concurrently complete peer evaluations of their teammates and answer questions around the types of roles each team member is taking on over the course of the main project. This paper will compare the identity and team course survey items for students enrolled in a first-year projects course at the University of Colorado Boulder to trends with scores on peer evaluations and team member role identification from the same sections of the course. We also further analyzed the peer evaluations and team roles identification of nine women students to determine if there is differential value placed on specific team roles. Together, these data will help give insight to the experiences of female students in engineering team-based projects classes.

Citation
Format

Zarske, M., & Wetzel, E., & Lacerenza, C. (2022, August), Female Student Attitudes Towards Engineering: Are They Influenced by the Roles They Take on Project Teams? Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41456

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - The increase of diversity in STEM fields is a growing conversation and source of concern for engineers. While universities report that the number of women students graduating with an engineering degree has increased, there still exists a surprising lack of women in engineering careers nationwide. Strategies such as active learning and collaborative learning have been at the forefront of curricular change, in part due to evidence that these interventions improve long-term material retention and critical thinking skills [2], [3]. Many engineering universities allow undergraduate students to take a hands-on project course during their first year or as a senior capstone as part of their degree, in which they work on a team with students from a variety of backgrounds to achieve a common goal. During these project courses, the students gain valuable experience working on teams and presenting their work to reviewers intended to prepare them for careers post-graduation. These courses are often evaluated through end-of semester surveys and questionnaires that query their course experience and skills gained. For several years, the first-year projects course in the University of Colorado Boulder’s College of Engineering and Applied Science has included additional questions around identity and intent to complete engineering careers in their course surveys. 

Course surveys do not fully capture the quality of the students' experience in a project design course. While correlation of completion through subsequent engineering semesters exists, we posit that the courses may create a confidence gap due to perceived value of the student’s role on the team that impacts their identity and retention. Throughout this course, students concurrently complete peer evaluations of their teammates and answer questions around the types of roles each team member is taking on over the course of the main project. This paper will compare the identity and team course survey items for students enrolled in a first-year projects course at the University of Colorado Boulder to trends with scores on peer evaluations and team member role identification from the same sections of the course. We also further analyzed the peer evaluations and team roles identification of nine women students to determine if there is differential value placed on specific team roles. Together, these data will help give insight to the experiences of female students in engineering team-based projects classes. 
AU  - Malinda Zarske
AU  - Evan Wetzel
AU  - Christina Lacerenza
CY  - Minneapolis, MN
DA  - 2022/08/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Female Student Attitudes Towards Engineering: Are They Influenced by the Roles They Take on Project Teams?
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/41456
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--41456
ER  -