Women Enrolled in Engineering Programs: Their Interests and Goals

Katherine L Walters; John M Mativo; Uduak Zenas George

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Conference: 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access
Location: Virtual On line
Publication Date: June 22, 2020
Start Date: June 22, 2020
End Date: June 26, 2021
Conference Session: Women in Engineering Division Technical Session 10
Tagged Division: Women in Engineering
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 14
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--35584
Permanent URL: https://strategy.asee.org/35584
Download Count: 538

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Katherine Walters is a PhD Student at the University of Georgia

Dr. John Mativo is Associate Professor at the University of Georgia. His research interest lies in two fields. The first is research focusing on best and effective ways to teaching and learning in STEM K-16. He is currently researching on best practices in learning Dynamics, a sophomore engineering core course. The second research focus of Dr. Mativo is energy harvesting in particular the design and use of flexible thermoelectric generators. His investigation is both for the high-tech and low tech applications. In addition to teaching courses such as energy systems, mechanics, mechatronics, and production, he investigates best ways to expand cutting edge technologies to the workforce.

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Uduak Zenas George San Diego State University

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Uduak Z. George is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at San Diego State University. She received her B.S. in Electrical/Electronic Engineering and M.S. in Computational Mathematics with Modeling. She earned her doctoral degree in Mathematics. Her research interests include computational fluid dynamics, biomechanics, parameter estimation, digital image processing and analysis, and numerical approximation of partial differential equations on fixed and evolving domains.

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Abstract

Women enrolled in engineering programs: Their interests and goals

A need to increase the number of students in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Education and careers has been emphasized in many forums. Of particular interest is finding reasons and ways of increasing the number of women engineering majors across colleges and universities. An investigation was done at a research 1 university to determine the factors that encourage women to enroll in an engineering major. The goal was to identify possible avenues to invest our effort towards enhancing the recruitment and retention of women engineering students. The data collected from the study included demographics, reason for enrolling in engineering, and the influence of family, school, technology and extracurricular activities on the career choice of study participants. One hundred eighty-six students responded to the survey but only 176 were used because they are the only ones that met the criteria of being a woman, undergraduate, and completing the online survey. Over 74% of the participants identified as white, 15% Asian, 6% African American, 3% Biracial and 3% identified as Hispanic. Most (83%) students attended regular public schools, 77% did not attend STEM related summer camps or after school programs, 61% did not attend Arts related summer camps and after school programs. The majority of the students (62%) enrolled in the major because they were interested in the major/discipline. Upon graduation 46% participants planned to work full-time, while 21% planned to work full-time and pursue graduate school, and 20% planned to pursue graduate school. Media played no role to student decision to enroll as engineering major. Less than half of the participants had family members with engineering degrees. This study showed that having a family member who had an engineering background encouraged women to pursue engineering as a major. The data resulting from this study seems to suggest that motivation to enrolling in engineering programs is based on student interest in the subject and desire for a secure career. Therefore this paper explores potential experiences that could lead to interest in engineering and how to intentionally cultivate and sustain this interest.

Citation
Format

Walters, K. L., & Mativo, J. M., & George, U. Z. (2020, June), Women Enrolled in Engineering Programs: Their Interests and Goals Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--35584

TY - CPAPER
AB - Women enrolled in engineering programs: Their interests and goals

A need to increase the number of students in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Education and careers has been emphasized in many forums. Of particular interest is finding reasons and ways of increasing the number of women engineering majors across colleges and universities. An investigation was done at a research 1 university to determine the factors that encourage women to enroll in an engineering major. The goal was to identify possible avenues to invest our effort towards enhancing the recruitment and retention of women engineering students. The data collected from the study included demographics, reason for enrolling in engineering, and the influence of family, school, technology and extracurricular activities on the career choice of study participants.
One hundred eighty-six students responded to the survey but only 176 were used because they are the only ones that met the criteria of being a woman, undergraduate, and completing the online survey. Over 74% of the participants identified as white, 15% Asian, 6% African American, 3% Biracial and 3% identified as Hispanic. Most (83%) students attended regular public schools, 77% did not attend STEM related summer camps or after school programs, 61% did not attend Arts related summer camps and after school programs. The majority of the students (62%) enrolled in the major because they were interested in the major/discipline. Upon graduation 46% participants planned to work full-time, while 21% planned to work full-time and pursue graduate school, and 20% planned to pursue graduate school. Media played no role to student decision to enroll as engineering major. Less than half of the participants had family members with engineering degrees. This study showed that having a family member who had an engineering background encouraged women to pursue engineering as a major.
The data resulting from this study seems to suggest that motivation to enrolling in engineering programs is based on student interest in the subject and desire for a secure career. Therefore this paper explores potential experiences that could lead to interest in engineering and how to intentionally cultivate and sustain this interest.

AU - Katherine L Walters
AU - John M Mativo
AU - Uduak Zenas George
CY - Virtual On line
DA - 2020/06/22
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Women Enrolled in Engineering Programs: Their Interests and Goals
UR - https://strategy.asee.org/35584
DO - 10.18260/1-2--35584
ER -