Work in progress — Initial identification of program components leading to retention of women in a pre-engineering high school program, and an undergraduate engineering program

This paper presents preliminary results from an NSF-sponsored project, Why Women Stay: An Investigation of Two Successful Programs. Our initial findings from interviews conducted with high school level students, (both males and females) and college age female students are revealing some of the reasons why girls and young women are staying in engineering programs. We are seeing the positive program components are those that directly contributed to creating a supportive stress-free environment, which made the technical applications accessible and technical skill acquisition possible. Girls in the high school program and the women in the college program noted the inclusive team-oriented and mutual goal-oriented engineering experiences through team design projects as those critical to their successes. In comparison, the male high-school students focused more on mastery experiences and technical/engineering skill acquisition. Goal-oriented engineering rather than content oriented learning benefited all of the students. Preliminary analysis of all interviews indicates that in order to retain women in engineering, programs must be designed to support women in stress-reduction including overcoming negative social perceptions about their ability to participate (inclusion) and succeed in engineering, and give them confidence to tackle technical/engineering challenges that they will encounter.