Female peers in small work groups enhance women's motivation, verbal participation, and career aspirations in engineering
Female peers in small work groups enhance women's motivation, verbal participation, and career aspirations in engineering
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1422822112
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发表时间：
2015-04-21
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Hunsinger, Matthew
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Dasgupta, Nilanjana;Scircle, Melissa McManus;Hunsinger, Matthew
多年来，科学教育、技术和政策制定方面的公共讨论一直关注“管道泄漏”问题：进入科学、技术、工程和数学领域的女性比男性少，离开这些领域的女性比男性多。很少有人关注这个问题的实验测试解决方案。我们报告了一项调查解决方案的实验：我们在工程领域创建了“微环境”（小组），其中女性的比例不同，以确定哪种环境能提高积极性和参与度，以及结果是否取决于学生的学业阶段。工程专业的女学生被随机分配到三个不同性别组成的工程小组：75%的女性，50%的女性和25%的女性。对于第一年来说，小组构成有很大的影响：女性占多数和性别平等的小组的女性比女性占少数的小组的女性感到更少的焦虑。然而，在高年级学生中，性别构成对焦虑没有影响。重要的是，无论女性的学术资历如何，群体构成都会显著影响口头参与：女性占多数的群体比性别平等或女性占少数的群体参与得更多。此外，当被分配到女性少数群体时，那些对工程有着含蓄的男性刻板印象的女性报告说她们更缺乏自信和工程职业抱负。然而，在性别平等和女性占多数的群体中，尽管有隐性的刻板印象，但信心和职业抱负仍然很高。这些数据表明，在男性主导的领域创建女性比例较高的小组，是保持女性参与并渴望从事工程职业的一种方法。虽然性别平等有时会起作用，但它不足以促进女性在小组工作中的口头参与，这往往会影响学习和掌握。
For years, public discourse in science education, technology, and policy-making has focused on the "leaky pipeline" problem: the observation that fewer women than men enter science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields and more women than men leave. Less attention has focused on experimentally testing solutions to this problem. We report an experiment investigating one solution: we created "microenvironments" (small groups) in engineering with varying proportions of women to identify which environment increases motivation and participation, and whether outcomes depend on students' academic stage. Female engineering students were randomly assigned to one of three engineering groups of varying sex composition: 75% women, 50% women, or 25% women. For first-years, group composition had a large effect: women in female-majority and sex-parity groups felt less anxious than women in female-minority groups. However, among advanced students, sex composition had no effect on anxiety. Importantly, group composition significantly affected verbal participation, regardless of women's academic seniority: women participated more in female-majority groups than sex-parity or female-minority groups. Additionally, when assigned to female-minority groups, women who harbored implicit masculine stereotypes about engineering reported less confidence and engineering career aspirations. However, in sex-parity and female-majority groups, confidence and career aspirations remained high regardless of implicit stereotypes. These data suggest that creating small groups with high proportions of women in otherwise male-dominated fields is one way to keep women engaged and aspiring toward engineering careers. Although sex parity works sometimes, it is insufficient to boost women's verbal participation in group work, which often affects learning and mastery.