Exploring Gender Differences in Students’ Sustainability Beliefs in Upper-level Engineering Courses
Exploring Gender Differences in Students’ Sustainability Beliefs in Upper-level Engineering Courses
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DOI：
10.18260/1-2--30490
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发表时间：
2018-06
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
M. Swift;Allison Godwin;Tripp Shealy
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文献类型：
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作者：
M. Swift;Allison Godwin;Tripp Shealy
可持续性已日益成为工程领域一个更为普遍的话题，因为对全面改善环境、提高生活质量和经济可行的全球解决方案的需求变得更加紧迫。然而，很少有研究探讨了学生的可持续发展相关的职业成果的期望，为上层工程专业的学生，特别是，这些利益可以用来扩大参与工程。这个时间点是一个关键的时间点，因为学生将从大学过渡到行业，他们可能会定位于解决紧迫的社会和环境问题。为了填补这一空白，在本文中，我们回答的问题，“男性和女性的态度之间存在着什么差异，对可持续发展的高级工程课程？”以便更好地了解可持续性主题如何促进妇女在未来职业生涯中满足这些需求的兴趣和愿望。我们使用的数据从试点的气候调查给予228初级和高级土木，环境和机械工程专业的学生在一个大型东成本研究机构。我们问了与之前一项名为“工程中的可持续性和性别”（SaGE）的研究相同的问题，该研究侧重于一年级的工程专业学生，“这些主题中，如果有的话，你希望在你的职业生涯中直接解决？”列出了十个可持续发展成果预期。我们使用皮尔逊卡方检验与耶茨的连续性校正来比较男性和女性的答案。我们发现，在学生的愿望，以解决能源，恐怖主义和战争，水供应，粮食供应，以及妇女和/或少数民族在他们的职业生涯的机会显着的性别差异。其中一些差异从一年级到高年级班一直存在，与SaGE在一年级学生中的结果相比，而另一些差异则在学生的本科教育期间发展。我们的研究结果开始帮助我们理解男性和女性的特殊差异，即使在他们的本科工程职业生涯中，他们在职业生涯中解决某些可持续发展成果的愿望可能会有所不同。
Sustainability has increasingly become a more prevalent topic in engineering as the need for global solutions that holistically improve the environmental, enhance quality of life, and are economically feasible have become more pressing. However, few studies have examined students’ sustainability related career outcome expectations for upper-level engineering students, and, in particular, how these interests can be used to broaden participation in engineering. This time point is a critical one as students will be transitioning from college to industry where they may be positioned to solve pressing societal and environmental problems. To fill this gap, in this paper we answer the question, “What differences exist between men and women’s attitudes about sustainability in upper-level engineering courses?” in order to better understand how sustainability topics may promote women’s interest in and desire to address these needs in their future careers. We used data from a pilot of the CLIMATE survey given to 228 junior and senior civil, environmental, and mechanical engineering students at a large East Cost research institution. We asked the same questions as a previous study, called Sustainability and Gender in Engineering (SaGE), focused on first-year engineering students, “Which of these topics, if any, do you hope to directly address in your career?” with a list of ten sustainability outcome expectations. We used Pearson’s Chi-squared test with Yates’ continuity correction to compare men and women’s answers. We found significant gender differences in students’ desire to address energy, terrorism and war, water supply, food availability, and opportunities for woman and/or minorities in their careers. Some of these differences persist from first-year through upper-level classes, as compared to the results from SaGE in first-year students, while others develop during students’ undergraduate education. Our results begin to help us understand the particular differences that men and women, even far along in their undergraduate engineering careers, may have in their desire to address certain sustainability outcomes in their careers.