The archived content below was originally hosted on PBWorks.com.

Welcome

Welcome to the wiki page for the APS workshop session held at WEPAN 2008 in St. Louis on June 10, 2008.  Details about the workshop, the associated engineering education research study (APS), and notes from the small-group discussions that took place during the workshop are below.  A similar workshop was held at ASEE 2008 in Pittsburgh on June 24, 2008.  A separate page, similar to this one, has notes from discussions at that workshop.

About CAEE and APS

The Academic Pathways Study (APS) is an extensive engineering education research study conducted by the Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education (CAEE).  Find out more about CAEE by visiting our web site.  In addition, the following overview paper is a good place to start to find out more about APS:

Sheppard, Sheri, Cynthia J. Atman, Reed Stevens, Lorraine Fleming, Ruth Streveler, Robin S. Adams, Theresa Barker. 2004. Studying the Engineering Experience: Design of a Longitudinal Study. In Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah, June 20-23, 2004. (PDF)

The "Publications and Resources" page on the CAEE web lists more papers, including some reporting on APS findings in depth.

About the APS at WEPAN workshop

This is the workshop description as published in the conference program:

As part of the NSF-funded Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education, the Academic Pathways Study (APS) seeks to understand U.S. undergraduate engineering students’ experiences as they navigate curricula, institutions, and preprofessional expectations. Four years of data collection have yielded a number of findings about how men and women experience engineering education, develop their identity as engineers, and conceptualize and actually engage in engineering practice. We propose an interactive workshop in which audience participants will build visions of engineering instruction, programming, and policy that stem from gender-related APS findings.

Discussion notes

Discussion questions

• What implications do these findings have on efforts to promote the success of women in engineering?
  • Existing practices and policies that the findings support
  • Changes suggested by the findings
• What further research is needed to suppor or justify these efforts?

Discussion notes (in no particular order)

These are minimally edited transcriptions of notes taken by workshop attendees and submitted at the end of the session.

OPEN QUESTIONS to research: 

• Does mentoring affect engineering persistence? 
• How is self-efficacy related to retention? 
• Are there indicators of success that apply across demographic groups?

Regarding mentoring, could a mentor affect the perception that engineering as experienced in college/university is not necessarily the same as engineering as experienced in "the real world"?  Perhaps students are unable to make the jump?  Who are role models for engineering students?  If they are us, are we perceived as being overworked?  Are we necessarily positive role models?

OPEN QUESTIONS to research: 

• What are barriers to entry into undergraduate engineering study?  How did students repsond to them? 
• What happens between the second and third years of undergraduate study, assuming that by the third year, those who are still studying engineering are likely to finish? 
• How do negative messages impact students, and how does their response vary with demographics (gender, race/ethnicity) and the message source?

APS FINDINGS: 

• women's greater perception of curricular overload
• students' tendency toward perfectionism

IMPLICATIONS on action: 

• helping students manage work-life balance
• keeping them from burning out from excessive involvement in organizations and leadership
• perhaps facilitating/teaching delegation of responsibilities

OPEN QUESTIONS to research: 

• How might having a brother influence a girl's experience with engineering education?

• culture---relationship between men/women
  • trash-talking male environment
  • social environment (competition, teasing, etc.?)
  • what guys "think" about girls being in engineering classes

APS FINDING:  reluctant persisters (women who are completing engineering degrees but intend to leave engineering after graduating)

IMPLICATIONS on action: 

Should we redefine what constitutes an "engineering career"?  Does doing technical work in the Peace Corps or teaching math/science qualify as staying in engineering?  How can we retrain advisers to appreciate students' non-engineering interests (e.g., sports, arts, politics, video gaming, etc.) and show them the relevance to engineering?

OPEN QUESTION to research:  How does work-life balance affect women at all levels of engineering education/career in persistence decisions?

APS FINDING:  women's greater perception of curricular overload

IMPLICATIONS on action:

• providing opportunities to develop additional skills, e.g., spatial visualization (See workbook and research by Sheryl Sorby)
• early intervention:  checking students' test scores, talk to them about why

APS FINDING:  ???

IMPLICATIONS on action: 

• early, broad intro to engineering that is taught well
• delay of math or other stumbling block classes, as at Wright State University

OPEN QUESTIONS to research:

• What defines success of a student?  What are positive influences and factors?
• What is the relevance of parental background and siblings?  How might this affect student exposure to career options and their career choices?

APS FINDING:  men who don't think women belong in engineering

OPEN QUESTIONS to research: 

• Are women aware of such attitudes?  Do women feel less qualified because they perceive advantages because of their gender?
• What do men think influences the women [to study engineering]?

IMPLICATIONS on action:  Address men, too.  Somehow let them know that women indeed belong.

OPEN QUESTIONS to research:  Regarding confidence, how does women's confidence change over time and why?  [See Brainard & Carlin in JEE, 1998.]

OPEN QUESTIONS to research:

• Do students participate in WIE/WISE?  What are their perceptions?  (both men and women)
• ...participation in engineering societies?
• Consider male notions of achievement.  Is engineering a hazing process?
• Consider effects of curved grading.  How are students supposed to know what 35/100 means? 
• How do student notions of academic success vary by gender?
• How do environmental factors affect students, e.g., peers (within/outside major), gender, faculty, student affairs/services
• What are professors/TAs perceptions about these students?  [See SoT element of CAEE.]

Other notes

One discussion group wondered how participants were selected.  The paper linked above briefly discusses participants, but, basically, they were beginning undergraduates who intended to major in engineering and agreed to participate in the study.  Participants were compensated in accordance with their level of involvement (e.g., just surveys vs. interviews and surveys).