Gendered Elective Track Choices in Engineering Undergraduate Education: Antecedents and Career Path Implications

研究表明，从事工程职业的女性比男性更有可能从事技术性较低的角色和职业道路，如商业分析，技术监督和产品管理。 此外，这些性别化的职业模式增加了女性工程师的自然减员风险。该项目旨在通过提高妇女在工程领域技术性角色和职业道路中的代表性，为扩大参与的国家利益服务。这一机构和社区转型、探索和设计项目侧重于女工科学生的选修课程选择，以此作为性别化职业模式的预测指标。 项目人员将调查女性工程专业学生选修课程选择背后的驱动力。 然后，他们将利用调查结果为教师发展和其他行政工作提供信息，以改善技术选修课程和技术导向职业中的性别平衡。 该项目的目标是确定有助于女生在工程专业选择选修课程的个人和机构因素。这项研究建立在以前的工作，展示性别角色和职业模式，并将有助于填补空白，了解这些模式如何以及为什么发展。 研究人员将通过对工程专业女本科生的调查和采访收集多年的数据。 这项研究还将包括教师和工作人员谁建议这些学生关于选修曲目的选择。调查将由PI开发，并将纳入先前验证的数学态度，角色信心，工程身份和相关结构的措施。 使用纵向，多方法和多层次的案例研究方法，调查人员将确定女性学生的选修轨道选择和机构人口统计，文化，课程和教学方法之间的关键关系，在性别平衡和不平衡的专业。该研究包括外部评估人员的监督，将为工程教师，顾问和管理人员提供建议，他们可以直接影响工程项目的氛围和工程专业学生的职业道路决定。此外，研究结果可能会为非工程专业（例如，数学;物理），并且可以推广到研究地点之外的其他教育环境。因此，这项研究可以帮助解决性别化的做法，并确定战略，以尽量减少他们在整个本科STEM教育。 该项目由NSF改善本科STEM教育计划（IUSE）：教育和人力资源（EHR）支持。 IUSE计划支持项目，以提高所有本科生的STEM教育的有效性。通过机构和社区转型轨道，IUSE：EHR计划支持在高等教育机构和学科社区转型和改善STEM教育的努力。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Research has shown that women who pursue engineering careers are more likely than their male counterparts to be in less technical roles and careers paths, such as business analysis, technical supervision, and product management. In addition, these gendered career patterns increase attrition risk for female engineers. This project aims to serve the national interest of broadening participation by improving the representation of women in technically-oriented roles and career paths within engineering. This Institutional and Community Transformation, Exploration and Design project focuses on female engineering students' elective track choices as a predictor of gendered career patterns. Project personnel will investigate the driving forces behind elective track choices for female engineering students. Then, they will use the findings to inform faculty development and other administrative efforts to improve gender balance within technical elective tracks and technically-oriented careers. The goal of the project is to identify individual and institutional factors that contribute to female students' elective track choices within engineering majors. This study builds on previous work that demonstrates gendered role and career patterns, and will contribute to filling gaps in understanding how and why these patterns develop. The investigators will collect data over multiple years through surveys and interviews of female undergraduates in engineering. The study will also include faculty and staff members who advise those students regarding elective track selection. The surveys will be developed by the PIs and will incorporate previously validated measures of math attitudes, role confidence, engineering identity, and related constructs. Using a longitudinal, multi-method and multi-level case study approach, the investigators will identify key relationships between female students' elective track choices and institutional demographics, culture, curriculum, and instructional approaches in both gender-balanced and imbalanced majors. The study, which includes oversight from an external evaluator, will produce recommendations for engineering faculty, advisors, and administrators who can directly affect the climate of engineering programs and career path decisions of engineering students. Moreover, the findings may inform similar investigations of gendered educational tracking in non-engineering majors (e.g., mathematics; physics), and may generalize to other educational settings beyond the study site. Thus, the study could help address gendered practices and identify strategies to minimize them throughout undergraduate STEM education. This project is supported by the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Program (IUSE): Education and Human Resources (EHR). The IUSE Program supports projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all undergraduate students. Through the Institutional and Community Transformation track, IUSE : EHR program supports efforts to transform and improve STEM education across institutions of higher education and disciplinary communities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.