Microaggressions in Engineering Student Teams: Effects on Learning, Performance, and Persistence

由于工程学被视为一个男性领域，工科女学生可能会在学习环境中体验到微妙但普遍存在的刻板印象，这可能会对她们的经历产生负面影响。这一早期研究项目将确定性别刻板印象的具体行为表现--微攻击性--及其对学习、表现和入门工程课程团队合作中的坚持性的累积影响。这种微侵略性可能会导致团队的氛围变得不那么欢迎女性。这项拟议的研究结合了两个研究兴趣浓厚的领域(关于性别刻板印象的社会科学研究和关于团队合作和气候的工程教育)，以促进对女性在工程学领域相对于男性的代表性不足的理解。该项目的目标是确定并可靠地测量基于实验室和基于课堂的工程学学生项目团队中的微侵略性。这项研究将测试，与男性相比，暴露在微攻击性环境中是否会增加感知到的刻板印象威胁，并减少女性在工程学领域的归属感，从而导致在学习、表现和坚持不懈等重要工程成果上有利于男性的性别差距。该研究计划建立在NSF资助的研究人员之前的工作基础上，包括五项研究活动。研究一的目标是确定在录像带的实验室工程团队中发生的具体类型的微侵犯(例如，忽视妇女的贡献或将妇女分配到较不重要的任务中)。研究人员将开发可靠的微侵袭评估程序，并将分析对工程结果(学习、性能和持久性)的影响。在第二项研究中，以实验室为基础的数据将通过学生焦点小组，由以前参加过工程学学生小组项目的学生报告的定性数据补充。研究三将考察班级团队中发生的微攻击性随时间推移对工程结果的影响。工程学入门学生团队将在一个学期的三个时间点被跟踪和观察，以衡量微攻击性及其对学业和心理结果的影响。在研究中，四名和五名工科学生(包括女性和男性)将被随机分配观看两个视频中的一个，其中显示学生团队在团队互动中存在或不存在微攻击性。研究人员将分析不同视频对学生对视频内容的知识和解决问题的坚持性的影响。

Because engineering is cast as a masculine field, women engineering students can experience subtle yet pervasive stereotypic messages in their learning environments that can negatively influence their experiences. This early stage research project will identify specific behavioral manifestations of gender stereotypes--microaggressions--and their cumulative effect on learning, performance, and persistence in introductory engineering course teamwork. Such microaggressions may cause the climate of the team to become less welcoming to women. The proposed research unites two areas of strong research interest (social science research on gender stereotypes and engineering education on teamwork and climate) to advance understanding of women's underrepresentation in engineering as compared to men.The goal of the project is to identify and reliably measure microaggressions in both lab-based and classroom-based engineering student project teams. The research will test whether exposure to microaggressions increases perceived stereotype threat and diminishes a sense of belonging in engineering for women compared to men, leading to a gender gap favoring men in the important engineering outcomes of learning, performance, and persistence. The research program builds on prior NSF-funded work of the investigators and includes five research activities. The goal of Study One is to identify the specific types of microaggressions (e.g., ignoring women's contributions or assigning women to less important tasks) occurring in videotaped laboratory-based engineering teams. Researchers will develop a reliable microaggressions assessment procedure, and will analyze effects on engineering outcomes (learning, performance, and persistence). In Study Two, the lab-based data will be supplemented with qualitative data reported by students who previously participated in an engineering student group project, via student focus groups. Study Three will examine the influence of microaggressions occurring in class-based teams on engineering outcomes over time. Introductory engineering student teams will be tracked and observed at three time points in one semester to measure microaggressions and their influence on academic and psychological outcomes. In studies Four and Five engineering students (both women and men) will be randomly assigned to view one of two videos showing student teams in which microaggressions are present or absent in team interactions. The researchers will analyze the effects of the different videos on the students knowledge of the content of the video and their persistence in solving problems.