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Factors Supporting Female Persistence in Undergraduate Engineering Studies: Insights Gained Through a Qualitative Analysis of Consistently Performing Programs Abstract

As part of our overall research into the issues of retention/persistence of female undergraduate engineering students, we identified and investigated programs that consistently conferred at least 30%, on average, of their baccalaureate degrees to females over a five year period. A qualitative analysis of six of these programs, all located in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), reveals five factors that encourage female persistence. The HBCUs were selected for this analysis due to the relative homogeneity of their student populations, which helps to reduce the impact of confounding factors on the analysis. In addition, they have managed to be successful with limited resources; the identified factors reflect institutional will and mission rather than economics and therefore are more universally adoptable. The results, obtained primarily through document review, are verified via triangulation with other data sources including interviews and representative sources from the literature. The success of these six programs in enabling female undergraduates to persist to graduation is further proof of the importance of climate, cultural, and environmental factors on the ability of retention/persistence strategies for female undergraduates in engineering to be successful. We recognize that these results are not unknown; however, they provide further evidence that a paradigm shift in the structure and delivery of undergraduate engineering studies is necessary to increase the overall percentage of female undergraduates receiving degrees in engineering.

Introduction

A central question in the research on the persistence of female undergraduates in engineering is “which factors contribute to the success of members of this population segment persisting to graduation?” Much research has been devoted to the identification of academic and social factors contributing to persistence,i but none, as far as can be determined, addresses the question using the strategy upon which the research presented in this paper is based: a review of consistently high-performing programs. We therefore decided to perform a qualitative analysis of engineering programs which have conferred at least 30%, on average, of their baccalaureate degrees to females from Academic Year (AY) 2001 (Class of 2002) to 2005 (Class of 2006) to identify core, common factors which support persistence of female undergraduates in engineering studies. The floor of 30% represents a level of achievement above the national average of approximately 20% of undergraduate engineering degrees conferred to females (as of AY 2005, 19.3%.6). The data are from the American Society for Engineering Education’s (ASEE) series Profiles of Engineering and Engineering Technology Colleges.1-5

The observation that overall retention rate of female undergraduates has been relatively flat or rising slowly for the past decade despite concerted, dedicated efforts at many institutions motivates this research and leads to the conclusion, reinforced by representative entries in the literature,7-9 that there are entrenched cultural barriers, both institutional and personal, to retention/persistence of female undergraduates in engineering to graduation. This research addresses factors which may ameliorate institutional barriers for these students. The

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Donohue, S., & Richards, L., & Vallas, C. (2008, June), Factors Supporting Persistence Of Females In Undergraduate Engineering Studies: Insights Gained Through A Qualitative Analysis Of Consistently Performing Programs Paper presented at 2008 Annual Conference & Exposition, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 10.18260/1-2--4267