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"Engineering Study and teaching Sex differences"
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Gender in STEM education in the Arab Gulf Countries
This book explores the critical issues in gender and STEM education in the Arabian Gulf, written within a context of educational systems developing rapidly over recent decades. With the ever-growing need for a highly skilled, gender-inclusive STEM workforce, the issues raised in this book are more topical than ever. It presents chapters from various sectors such as childrens perceptions of science, scientists and their work, adolescent and university years by studying large-scale secondary data variations across countries in the region and finally presenting work relating to gender in STEM education. The book closes with a chapter on factors of success in female leaders STEM career journeys. It offers recommendations for both policy and practices in gender equity in the STEM workplace, based on their experiences. This book is written in a highly accessible yet academic manner. It is an essential resource for a wide-ranging audience interested in the complex relationships between gender and STEM.
Book
Bourdieu, networks, and movements: Using the concepts of habitus, field and capital to understand a network analysis of gender differences in undergraduate physics
Current trends suggest that significant gender disparities exist within Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education at university, with female students being underrepresented in physics, but more equally represented in life sciences (e.g., biology, medicine). To understand these trends, it is important to consider the context in which students make decisions about which university courses to enrol in. The current study seeks to investigate gender differences in STEM through a unique approach that combines network analysis of student enrollment data with an interpretive lens based on the sociological theory of Pierre Bourdieu. We generate a network of courses taken by around 9000 undergraduate physics students (from 2009 to 2014) to quantify Bourdieu's concept of field. We identify the fields in which physics students participate by constructing a weighted co-enrollment network and finding communities within it. We then use odds ratios to report gender differences in transverse movements between different academic fields, and non-parametric tests to assess gender differences in vertical movements (changes in students' achievement rankings within a field). Odds ratios comparing the likelihood of progression from one field to another indicate that female students were more likely to make transverse movements into life science fields. We also found that university physics did a poor job in attracting high achieving students, and especially high achieving female students. Of the students who did choose to study physics at university, low and middle achieving female high school students were more likely to decrease their relative rank in their first year compared to their male counterparts. Low achieving female students were also less likely to continue with physics after their first year compared to their male counterparts. Results and implications are discussed in the context of Bourdieu's theory, and previous research. We argue that in order to remove constraints on female students' study choices, the field of physics needs to provide a culture in which all students feel like they belong.
Journal Article
VentureGirls : raising girls to be tomorrow's leaders
Shares practical advice and activities for parents and educators for engaging today's young women in STEM subjects while giving them the tools of positive entrepreneurship.
Book
What do students expect from teaching assistants (TAs)? Considerations of gender, race, and international status
Teaching Assistants (TAs) make important contributions to STEM teaching in higher education. While TAs often play both peer and authority figure roles, however, relatively little is known about exactly what students expect from TAs. To fill this gap, the first major goal of this study was to comprehensively understand these expectations from a large population of undergraduate engineering students. In addition, this study sought to understand how these expectations vary with students’ gender, race/ethnicity, and international status during distinct time periods associated with the recent COVID-19 pandemic (pre-COVID, during COVID, and post COVID). Student expectations were measured via a short-answer survey question in a cross-sectional dataset at a single, large institution comprised of sophomore to senior level students ( n = 1,678) enrolled in engineering courses between 2016 and 2023. Thematic analyses were used to analyze student expectations and statistical, quantitative techniques were used to identify demographic differences. While no single majority theme emerged, many (42.9%) students thought that interactions were most important for TAs to emphasize while 37.6% believed TA preparation to be most important. A smaller but noteworthy percentage (7.61%) of students expected TAs to be caring and hospitable. Significant differences emerged in different time periods and across students’ race/ethnicity, international status, and gender. The results of this study indicate that students have a wide range of expectations of TAs and that these expectations are different for different times and classroom conditions. The results of this study can directly inform TA professional development as well as faculty guidance and supervision of TAs.
Journal Article
Teaching and learning styles on Moodle: an analysis of the effectiveness of using STEM and Non-STEM qualifications from a gender perspective
Teaching in Higher Education is with increasing frequency completed within a Learning Management System (LMS) environment in the Blended Learning modality. The use of learning objects (activities and resources) offered by LMS means that both teachers and students require training. In addition, gender differences relating to the number of students in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) and Non-STEM courses might have some influence on the use of those learning objects. The study involves 13 teachers (6 experts in e-Learning and 7 non-experts) on 13 academic courses (4 STEM and 9 Non-STEM) and a detailed examination of the logs of 626 students downloaded from the Moodle platform. Our objectives are: (1) To confirm whether significant differences may be found in relation to the use of learning objects (resources and activities) on Moodle, depending on the expertise of the teacher (expert vs. non-expert in e-Learning); (2) To confirm whether there are significant differences between students regarding their use of learning objects, depending on the expertise of the teacher (expert vs. non-expert in e-Learning); (3) To confirm whether there are significant differences for the use of learning objects among students as a function of gender. Differences were found in the use of Moodle learning objects (resources and activities) for teachers and for students depending on the expertise of the teacher. Likewise, differences were found for the use of some learning objects as a function of gender and the degrees that the students were following. Increased technological training for both teachers and students is proposed, especially on Non-STEM qualifications, in order to mitigate the effects of the technological gap and its collateral relation with the gender gap and the digital divide.
Journal Article
Gendered Pathways to Career Exploration and Academic Persistence Among STEM Undergraduates in South Korea
Gender disparities in STEM education continue to shape students’ academic persistence and career development. Identifying how psychological and contextual factors operate differently for male and female students is essential for understanding these disparities and designing targeted interventions. This study examines gender differences in the structural pathways linking contextual supports, career barriers, engineering self-efficacy, major motivation, career exploration behaviors, and academic persistence intentions among STEM undergraduates in South Korea. Using data from 2393 students collected through a national institutional project, multi-group structural equation modeling (SEM) was conducted to compare path coefficients between male and female students. The results showed that contextual supports significantly enhanced engineering self-efficacy, which in turn predicted higher major motivation and stronger academic persistence intentions across both groups. However, gender-specific differences emerged. Major motivation had a stronger positive effect on persistence among male students, whereas career exploration behaviors were negatively associated with persistence intentions only among female students. In addition, career barriers exerted a stronger negative total effect on persistence among female students. These findings suggest that gender differences in STEM are reflected not only in overall levels but also in the structural mechanisms linking key variables. Practically, supporting female students in managing perceived barriers and reframing career exploration as an adaptive process may help strengthen their academic persistence.
Journal Article
An In-Depth Exploration of the BELONG Conceptual Model of Engineering Persistence
At Loyola University Chicago, the B.S. Engineering program graduates about 53% women annually, which is much higher than the United States’ average of 25%. In this paper, Loyola University Chicago’s BELONG (Becoming Engineers Leading Our Next Generation) Conceptual Model of Engineering Persistence is described. Grounded in social cognitive career theory, the BELONG model inputs collaborative program structures and uses sense of belonging to explain engineering persistence. Program structures that minimize the chilly climate of engineering for women, particularly those administered during the first undergraduate semester, are described. To explore the model, qualitative semi-structured interviews with self-identified women of color were conducted to gain an in-depth understanding of their program experiences during their first semester. After applying emergent, focused, and thematic coding, results revealed student experiences and understandings of engineering self-efficacy, outcome expectations, interest, sense of belonging, and experiences of program structures. Results support the BELONG model, an approach that addresses the exclusion of women in engineering through program structures and rethinks and repositions engineering education as a more inclusive environment.
Journal Article
Gender Differences in Determinants of Students’ Interest in STEM Education
Despite the government’s call for students to pursue science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), the gender gap in STEM education is still of significant concern in South Africa. This study aimed to describe different push-pull factors that influenced male and female students when choosing STEM education at the TVET college level. This study used qualitative research methods and focus-group interviews with a sample of 20 students studying at a TVET college in a rural part of the Limpopo province. In addition, a thematic analysis was used to analyse the data collected. The study revealed that the following factors: lucrative salary, graduate unemployment rate, aptitude for mathematics and science, parental education and autonomy and independence, and rejecting stereotypical feminine identities were push-pull factors that influenced both male and female TVET college students to choose STEM education. The policy implication of this study is that an Afrocentric approach should be infused into the teaching and learning of STEM at TVET colleges.
Journal Article
Exploring the Gender Gap: Motivation, Procrastination, Environment, and Academic Performance in an Introductory Physics Course in a Human-Centered Private University in Northeast Mexico—A Case Study
Progress has been made in recent decades toward achieving gender equality, but today, the gender gap is still noticeable, especially in STEM fields. In support of Goal 5 of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda: achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls, we analyze the context of a private university in northeastern Mexico using a sample of 249 students (157 males and 92 females) enrolled in the first-year engineering course Physics I. The sample presents better academic performance in favor of women by the end of the course as reported through the final course score (F); thus, we explore potential gender differences in student profiles, such as their motivation and level of procrastination using Kruskal–Wallis correlation tests, and measuring the effect size with Cohen’s d. Our tests reported here reveal significant differences in extrinsic motivation (EMO) and intrinsic motivation (IMO), where females obtained higher means in IMO, while males reported higher levels of procrastination (PRO). Contrary to other cases in the literature, the sample presents better academic performance in favor of women. Our findings here aim to encourage programs and strategies that strengthen women’s intrinsic motivation to support women’s empowerment and keep reducing the gender gap.
Journal Article
Assessment of problem solving ability in novice programmers
Problem Solving (PS) skills allow students to handle problems within an educational context. PS is a core competence of Computer Science education and affects programming success. In this vein, this paper aims to investigate PS ability performance in primary school pupils of a computer course, implemented according to the Neo-Piagetian theory of cognitive development. The study included 945 Slovenian pupils, ranging from fourth to sixth grade. The effects of gender, age and consecutive years of attending the course were examined on pupils' PS ability at the pre-operational and concrete operational stages. Pupils completed a survey questionnaire with four types of tasks (a series of statements, if-statements, loops and variables) at both stages. The analysis revealed three findings: the performance of PS ability in all tasks was, at the pre-operational stage, associated positively with performance at the concrete operational stage; there were no gender differences in PS performance at both stages, and both the grade and consecutive year of taking the computer course had an effect on PS ability performance at both stages. Those in the lowest grade and those taking the course for the first year reported lower performances than their older counterparts. These findings may help curriculum designers across the world develop efficient approaches to teaching computer courses.
Journal Article