Women only make up approximately 20 percent of engineering college graduates in STEM fields, even with an increasing number of K-12 STEM programs bringing more into the fold. This attrition is under study and the search for solutions to help encourage girls to stay in engineering is producing results.
For example, one recent study by the University of Massachusetts Amherst showed the influence of female engineering students having female peer and senior mentors being a significant factor in their academic success.
Another study by researchers at Wake Forest University adds to this, indicating that pairing female engineering students with one another for projects has a noticeable effect on both grades and retention rates.
Research discovered that female first-year engineering students paired with at least one other female student for group projects earned higher grades in their introductory engineering classes.
Female students were also more likely to declare an engineering major at the end of their first year of study.
“When you’re working on a project with people who are more like you, it makes you feel comfortable,” said Amanda Griffith, an associate professor of economics who specializes in challenges facing women in STEM programs, and the lead researcher of the study. “That connection can be powerful and could point to something about similar learning processes.”
The report, titled “There Is No I in Team: Peer Effects in Engineering”, looks at students enrolled in a first-year engineering course at a selective university in the Midwest.
The class demographics were typical compared to other selective engineering programs, with high test scores for entering students, a low proportion of female and minority students and a high number of international students.
A “flipped” classroom setting has students watch lectures and complete assigned readings ahead of time in preparation for class. The students work in randomly selected groups of four to create a design during class time.
“They have to work as a team to do that,” Griffith said. “It creates a lot of interaction between students that are randomly put together. Because the classroom is flipped, we actually know the interaction is happening.”
When female students in the class worked in a group that had at least one other female student, their final course grade was higher than those students who were the only female in their group.
“We definitely see benefits for women not being alone in this type of setting,” Griffith said. “What’s going on here could be happening in other engineering settings like this, both in and out of the classroom.”
The research team wants to continue their study to see if there is any carryover or compounding effect during the second course in the engineering program sequence, where students will be assigned to different project groups.
They also want to follow the path forward and see if these types of same-gender peer influences also affect whether female engineering students graduate with an engineering degree and if there is an effect on whether these females then pursue careers in the engineering fields.
These research results are important because they offer an insight into keeping females in STEM fields through the completion of a degree and improving the likelihood that many will become engineering professionals when they enter the workforce.
To learn more, visit the Wake Forest University website.