GSE/RES: Women's Persistence in Engineering Careers: Barriers and Supports

智力优势：本研究旨在了解导致一些女性坚持从事工程职业而另一些女性离开工程职业的因素，大多数关于有效干预的研究都集中在增加女性对工程专业的选择上。然而，尽管目前工程专业毕业生中有20%是女性，但专业工程师中只有11%是女性。显然，女性不成比例地选择不进入或坚持从事工程职业，但研究并没有系统地调查哪些因素可能有助于他们的决定。这可能是由于他们自己对管理组织气候、执行工程任务或平衡工作和家庭角色的担忧，也可能是由于环境障碍，如冷冰冰的的组织气候。社会认知生涯理论（SCCT）模型有助于解释女性工程师职业保留的相关因素。SCCT预测，自我效能和结果预期通过对兴趣的影响间接影响持久性，进而影响选择行为（例如，选择留在职业生涯或离开）。这项研究将扩大这种SCCT研究的妇女在工程职业（或谁已经离开了这些职业）通过检查三个领域的自我效能和结果期望（工程任务，工作/家庭的平衡，和组织气候），利益和障碍，并支持妇女在不同阶段的职业生涯（5，10，15，20年毕业后）。工作的一个前提是，职业承诺和工作满意度预测撤退认知和辞职的意图，这反过来又预测持久性或离职。该研究将纵向跟踪女性队列，提供关于影响她们决定留下或离开工程职业的因素的横截面和纵向视角。更广泛的影响：除了在相关专业期刊上发表外，研究结果还将用于为组织提供实用指导，帮助它们设计和实施有效的政策，以留住女工程师。研究结果也可用于帮助制定干预措施，这可能有助于增加妇女在工程职业中的保留。最后，更广泛的影响将包括培养研究生作为未来的专业人士，具有社会认知职业理论和研究女工程师职业的专业知识。

Intellectual Merit: This study is designed to understand the factors that lead some women to persist in engineering careers and others to leave it. Most of the research on effective interventions has focused on increasing women's choice of engineering major. However, though women are now 20% of engineering graduates only 11% of professional engineers are women. Clearly, women are disproportionately choosing not to enter or persist in engineering careers, but research has not systematically investigated what factors may contribute to their decisions. This may be due to their own concerns about managing the organizational climate, performing engineering tasks, or balancing work and family roles or could be due to environmental barriers, such as a chilly organizational climate. The Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) model may help to explain the factors related to retention for women in engineering career. SCCT predicts that self-efficacy and outcome expectations act indirectly on persistence through their influence on interests, which in turn influences choice behavior (e.g., choice to stay in the career or leave). This study will extend this SCCT research to women in engineering careers (or who have left those careers) by examining three domains of self-efficacy and outcome expectations (engineering tasks, work/family balance, and organizational climate), interests and barriers and supports for women in different stages of their career (5, 10, 15, 20 years post graduation). One premise of the work is that career commitment and job satisfaction predict withdrawal cognitions and the intent to quit, which in turn, predict either persistence or turnover. The study will follow cohorts of women longitudinally, providing both cross-sectional and a longitudinal perspective on factors influencing their decisions to stay, or leave, an engineering career. Broader Impact: Beyond the publication in relevant professional journals, the findings will also be used to provide practical guidance to organizations that may help them in designing and implementing effective policies that lead to the retention of women engineers. The findings may also be used to help develop interventions that may help to increase the retention of women in engineering careers. Finally, the broader impact will include preparing graduate students as future professionals with an expertise in social cognitive career theory and in examining careers of women engineers.