Female characteristics and requirements in software engineering in mechanical engineering

Software engineering tasks like modeling and programming in mechanical engineering are influenced by different factors. This includes knowledge and abilities in the specific profession but also characteristics of the person and gender aspects are necessary. Those personal factors on the hand are cognitive abilities and knowledge acquired through prior experience and on the other hand, personal characteristics like personality structure, self-efficacy, motivation and mental workload. It also includes the consideration of gender aspects and the relationship of gender specific characteristics of personal factors to performance in software engineering tasks. The aim of the research approach is to reveal characteristics of the person associated with performance in software engineering tasks. An empirical study examined the gender differences in the personal factors. Furthermore, females´ personal factors relationship to software engineering performance was examined. Finally, an additional plant programming course was introduced containing the work with real hardware. The exam (behavior and structure modeling) at the end of the course showed that especially females benefit from the more practical learning method.