Re-engineering engineering education to retain women

Blaisdell, Stephanie; Middleton, Angela; Anderson-Rowland, Mary R.

doi:10.1109/fie.1996.573064

Cited by 5 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 1 publication

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Blaisdell, et al found that women who see other women in their classes (students and faculty), have a place to connect with each other, see the relevance of their coursework and its applications in the work world are much more likely to graduate. 16 This fits with what Belenky, et al have long shown about women's learning styles: women generally ground what they believe in personal experiences; taking in facts and reason, integrating it with their sense of themselves in their lived world. 17 Along with all students, women were also found to benefit from faculty and advisors who are aware of their needs and from programs that teach and support life management and study skills.…”

Section: Attracting Women To Engineeringsupporting

confidence: 81%

“…17 Along with all students, women were also found to benefit from faculty and advisors who are aware of their needs and from programs that teach and support life management and study skills. 16 In the case of Ed March, he adjusted his course: Having seen this interest in using engineering skills to benefit society, I have incorporated the concept of sustainable development into the course. Rather than portraying Engineering Project Management as simply a method for effectively introducing products or services that increase revenue or reduce cost for a company, I present it as a method to help a company succeed in completing projects that advance it's commitment to sustainability; achieving simultaneously the objectives of financial success while operating in an environmentally sound manner and a socially responsible way.…”

Section: Attracting Women To Engineeringmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Attracting Underrepresented Groups To Engineering With Service Learning

Barrington¹,

Duffy²

2007 Annual Conference &Amp; Exposition Proceedings

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Lowell. She is a second career Mechanical Engineer, who also brings over twenty years of human services management to this position. She assists faculty in all five engineering departments to develop course-based service-learning projects by linking them with appropriate non-profit organizations to meet real community needs. John Duffy, University of Massachusetts-LowellProfessor of Mechanical and Solar Engineering, faculty coordinator of the SLICE project (Service-Learning Integrated throughout a College of Engineering), coordinator of the graduate program in solar engineering, and coordinator of the Village Empowerment Project.

show abstract

Section: Attracting Women To Engineeringsupporting

confidence: 81%

Section: Attracting Women To Engineeringmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attracting Underrepresented Groups To Engineering With Service Learning

Barrington¹,

Duffy²

2007 Annual Conference &Amp; Exposition Proceedings

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For women in college, Blaisdell et al found that women who see other women in their classes (students and faculty), have a place to connect with each other, and see the relevance of their coursework and its real-world applications are much more likely to graduate. 6 This fits with what Belenky et al have long shown about women's learning styles: women generally ground what they believe in personal experiences; taking in facts and reason, integrating it with their Page 23.435.2 sense of themselves in their lived world. 7 At the University of Massachusetts Lowell, the college wishes to attract and retain underrepresented groups in engineering.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Differences by Student Gender in Engineering Service-Learning

Barrington¹,

Reynaud²,

Willard-Schmoe³

2013 ASEE Annual Conference &Amp; Exposition Proceedings

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Attracting and retaining women in engineering is critical in the USA today. While women are coming to college in overrepresented numbers, they are not represented equally to men in engineering majors. Though a university can only have limited impact on the attrition of women in the engineering workforce, we can (and must!) work to improve recruitment and retention and to graduate women with adequate preparation for an engineering career. An increasing number of engineering programs are integrating service-learning (S-L) into their curricula. For the past eight years of one S-L program, students in a college of engineering have been widely surveyed at the beginning of their studies and at the end of each academic year. The purpose of the ongoing study is to investigate the impacts of S-L on the students, faculty, institution and community. Quantitative analysis of student survey responses over the years reveals a consistently marked difference in attitude between genders toward community engagement generally, and S-L specifically. For example, in the spring of 2012, 465 surveys were collected from engineering students of all grades and majors, of whom 57 identified as female. Among several other items, statistically significant differences (at the 5% level) arose in responses between the genders in their rating of Helping as a career value, their belief that service should be an expected part of the engineering profession, and their belief that S-L projects have helped them learn how to apply the concepts they learned in class to real life problems. A quarter of all spring 2012 survey participants reported that S-L was one reason they came to this college, or that it would have been if they had known about it. This included 23% of the men, but 47% of the women. Considering this study's finding that S-L is especially attractive for women, engineering departments hoping to improve their female-male ratio should consider the integration of S-L into their curriculum.

show abstract

“…For women in college, Blaisdell, et al found that women who see other women in their classes (students and faculty), have a place to connect with each other, see the relevance of their coursework and its applications in the work world are much more likely to graduate (Blaisdell, Middleton, & Anderson-Rowland, 1996). This fits with what Belenky et al have long shown about women's learning styles: women generally ground what they believe in personal experiences; taking in facts and reason, integrating it with their sense of themselves in their lived world (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1997).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This fits with what Belenky et al have long shown about women's learning styles: women generally ground what they believe in personal experiences; taking in facts and reason, integrating it with their sense of themselves in their lived world (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1997). Along with all students, women were also found to benefit from faculty and advisors who are aware of their needs and from programs that teach and support life management and study skills (Blaisdell, Middleton, & Anderson-Rowland, 1996).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attitudes of Engineering Students from Underrepresented Groups Toward Service-Learning

Duffy¹,

Barrington²,

Heredia³

2011 ASEE Annual Conference &Amp; Exposition Proceedings

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Ongoing student surveys, supplemented by interviews, reveal that service in general and servicelearning (S-L) in particular are more attractive to those from underrepresented groups in engineering than to their counterparts. Courses with service-learning projects have been integrated into existing required courses in engineering over the past six years in five departments at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Entering engineering students have been sampled every fall with a "pre" survey, and then all students are surveyed "post" at the end of the spring semester. Evidence continues to mount of the significant difference in responses in attitudes toward community service and S-L in engineering with women especially and to a lesser extent other minorities in engineering. Voluntary participation in S-L projects involving work with and in developing countries continues to attract females at a rate of more than 3 times their underlying population. The results of these ongoing S-L courses and surveys point to a growing difference by gender in response to community service in general and service-learning in particular. If the engineering profession wants to attract and retain more people from underrepresented groups, more servicelearning in engineering appears to be one approach.

show abstract

Re-engineering engineering education to retain women

Cited by 5 publications

References 1 publication

Attracting Underrepresented Groups To Engineering With Service Learning

Attracting Underrepresented Groups To Engineering With Service Learning

Differences by Student Gender in Engineering Service-Learning

Attitudes of Engineering Students from Underrepresented Groups Toward Service-Learning

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About