(RES) Assessing Women in Engineering Programs: Developing Exportable Tools for Success.

该项目将为全国范围内的妇女参与工程方案开发标准化、可出口和可比的评估工具和模型，从而使这些方案能够评估其方案活动，并最终为作出知情评估提供数据。为了实现这一目标，密苏里州大学和宾夕法尼亚州立大学的主要研究人员将与各自机构的WIE项目以及伦斯勒理工学院、格鲁吉亚理工学院和德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校的三个合作项目合作三年。有了这五个项目，共同代表了各种私人和公共，多年的经验为WIE董事和学生团体的特点，调查人员将试点，修改，实施，进行初步的数据分析和传播易于访问，可靠和有效的评估工具。形成性评价的原则将适用于所有工具和产品。所有机构都将使用同一套工具，从而使它们能够在各自机构的数据之外获得强有力的基准数据。事件和支持计划，影响妇女的满意度与他们的工程专业，以及他们的决定坚持或离开这些专业。与WECE的宏观层面和以学生为重点相比，该提案的目标受众是WIE主任，重点是WIE方案，而不是学生。全国大约有50个WIE方案。一半的人表示对这一努力感兴趣。WIE主任将受益于现成的评估工具，使他们能够收集有关计划的数据，评估这些计划，并就如何修改计划和/或重新分配有限的资源以最大限度地提高整体计划的有效性作出决定。来自这些工具的数据还将为行政人员、咨询委员会和潜在的供资机构提供确凿的证据。最后，由于这些工具将在全国范围内提供，各方案将有机会在决策过程中利用强有力的基准数据，该项目为全国招募和留住工程领域妇女的运动提供了下一个合乎逻辑的步骤。

This project will develop standardized, exportable and comparable assessment instruments and models for Women In Engineering (WIE) programs nationwide, thus allowing them to assess their program's activities and ultimately provide data for making well-informed evaluations. To accomplish this goal, the principal investigators at the University of Missouri and Penn State University will work over a three-year period with their institutions' WIE programs and three cooperating programs at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Georgia Tech, and University of Texas at Austin. With these five programs that collectively represent a variety of private and public, years of experience for WIE directors and student body characteristics, the investigators will pilot, revise, implement, conduct preliminary data analysis and disseminate easy-to-access, reliable and valid assessment instruments. The principles of formative evaluation will be applied to all instruments and products. All institutions will use the same set of instruments, thus allowing them to have access to powerful benchmarking data in addition to the data from each of their respective institutions.A prior project, the Women's Experience in College Engineering Project (WECE) sought to characterize the factors that influence women students' experiences and decisions by studying college environments, events and support programs that affect women's satisfaction with their engineering major, and their decisions to persist or leave these majors. In contrast to WECE's macro-level and student focus, this proposal's target audience is WIE directors, with a focus on WIE programs, not students.Women in Engineering programs around the United States are a crucial part of our country's response to the need for more women in engineering professions. There are about 50 WIE programs nationwide. Half have expressed interest in this effort. WIE directors will benefit by having ready-made assessment tools that will allow them to collect data on programs, evaluate these programs, and make decisions on how to revise programs and / or redistribute limited resources to maximize overall program effectiveness. Data from these instruments will also provide substantiated evidence for administrators, advisory boards and potential funding agencies. Finally, because these instruments will be available nationwide, programs will have the opportunity to take advantage of powerful benchmarking data for their decision-making processes.This project provides the next logical step in the national movement to recruit and retain women in engineering.