Group work experiences of women students in a Scottish chemical engineering programme

Abstract

This version is available at https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/56959/ Strathprints is designed to allow users to access the research output of the University of Strathclyde. Unless otherwise explicitly stated on the manuscript, Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Please check the manuscript for details of any other licences that may have been applied. You may not engage in further distribution of the material for any profitmaking activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute both the url (https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/) and the content of this paper for research or private study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge.Any correspondence concerning this service should be sent to the Strathprints administrator: strathprints@strath.ac.ukThe Strathprints institutional repository (https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk) is a digital archive of University of Strathclyde research outputs. It has been developed to disseminate open access research outputs, expose data about those outputs, and enable the management and persistent access to Strathclyde's intellectual output. in recent years towards greater women student representation. This raises the issue of the inclusion, 10 in terms of equality of participation and opportunities, of these women students in learning activities 11 and also the role that they can play in encouraging inclusion and development of others, which can 12 have implications, not only for their current studies, but their future careers. This paper provides both 13 statistical evaluation of students' attainment from group working activities, and a narrative account of 14 the students' experiences along with the resulting impact on their inclusion, engagement and group 15 interactions. We highlight the changing role filled by women students and their awareness of these 16 changes and impacts. Notably, the work identifies a change in attitude with regards to roles for 17 women in facilitating group work with many women students purposefully avoiding the additional 18 work-load that past studies have identified. 19

The role of undergraduate laboratories in the formation of engineering identities: A critical review of the literature

“…19 The positive contribution of active learning in laboratories to engaging students' interest in engineering subject matter and in identity formation was recognised in a number of studies, 7,18 but many studies also pointed to negative experiences in engineering laboratories. Women students and underrepresented groups described themselves as 'isolated', 14 'side-lined' 35 or 'not participating fully'. 4 Students who came into engineering laboratories without previous experience or knowledge of engineering laboratories often struggled to gain acceptance.…”

Upskilling student engineers: The role of design in meeting employers’ needs

“…They are consequently more likely to work in a cooperative manner (Belenky et al 1986;Flynn et al 1991;Gilligan 1982), however, previous work has shown that women students can face negativity from their men peers (Carter and Kirkup 1990;Flynn et al 1991), and this may result in the assignment of group secretarial responsibilities, as a consequence of gender related bias. Our previous research has shown that women students rebel against this in their early student life (Nisbet et al 2016) but may reconfigure their later working practices to improve their potential attainment by increased time spent on task for report completion and drive to produce a more integrated final output.…”