PEG/SEP: Design Engineering Teams: Influence of Gender Composition on Decision Making

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The fields of engineering and science increasingly demand the use of team decision making in order to meet the needs of a rapidly developing technological society. Historically, women have been excluded from participating in the decision-making processes within these fields. Today women are increasingly breaking through stereotypical beliefs and barriers that have discouraged many in the past from entering and advancing in these fields. Because of such advances, current team decision-making research shows the need to examine the interactions and mixed gender team decision making. The objective of this study is to investigate how the gender composition influences the decision-making process of engineering design teams in the quality of the developed solution, the roles of team members, and the quality of experiences of team members. The proposed study will explore the mixed gender decision-making processes of student teams enrolled in the first and second year of the Engineering Practices Introductory Course Sequence (EPICS) at the Colorado School of Mines (CSM). Experts in the field of team decision making have recognized the importance of this proposed research agenda. The time required to complete this study is 12 months, with the first phase of the study spent collecting literature and development instruments. In the second phase, an experimental observation will be conducted of approximately 70 mixed-gender teams composed of four engineering design students enrolled in the first and second year of EPICS at CSM. The students are assigned an "ill-structured" design program where neither the solution process nor the goal is well defined. This study will lead to future studies concerning the influence that gender has upon the engineering team decision-making process. Results from this study could have profound implications for the effectiveness and economic viability of mixed gender team decision making. Plans to collaborate with other institutions are already in progress; these institutions have been contacted and are supportive of this research. This research will be shared with CSM faculty and students, and the gender equity research community. The investigators propose that the results from this study will contribute to current gender equity research and models designed to facilitate the interest, motivation, and achievement of women in the fields of science and engineering.