Serrano Anazco, M. I., & Zurn-Birkhimer, S., & Kraus, G. G. (2021, January), Qualitative Analysis of Undergraduate and Graduate Female Engineering Students’ Strategies in Response to Gender Stereotype or Bias  Paper presented at 2021 CoNECD, Virtual - 1pm to 5pm Eastern Time Each Day . 10.18260/1-2--36116

\bibitem{asee_peer_36116}
  Serrano Anazco, M. I., \& Zurn-Birkhimer, S., \& Kraus, G. G. (2021, January), \emph{Qualitative Analysis of Undergraduate and Graduate Female Engineering Students’ Strategies in Response to Gender Stereotype or Bias}
  Paper presented at 2021 CoNECD, Virtual - 1pm to 5pm Eastern Time Each Day .
  10.18260/1-2--36116

Mayari Illarij Serrano Anazco, Suzanne Zurn-Birkhimer, and Grace Gilan Kraus.  "Qualitative Analysis of Undergraduate and Graduate Female Engineering Students’ Strategies in Response to Gender Stereotype or Bias".  2021 CoNECD, Virtual - 1pm to 5pm Eastern Time Each Day , 2021, January.  ASEE Conferences, 2021.  https://peer.asee.org/36116 Internet.  14 May, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_36116}
  Mayari Illarij Serrano Anazco, Suzanne Zurn-Birkhimer, and Grace Gilan Kraus.
  "Qualitative Analysis of Undergraduate and Graduate Female Engineering Students’ Strategies in Response to Gender Stereotype or Bias".
  \emph{2021 CoNECD, Virtual - 1pm to 5pm Eastern Time Each Day , 2021, January}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2021.
  https://peer.asee.org/36116 Internet.  14 May, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_36116
author = "Mayari Illarij Serrano Anazco, Suzanne Zurn-Birkhimer, and Grace Gilan Kraus"
title = "Qualitative Analysis of Undergraduate and Graduate Female Engineering Students’ Strategies in Response to Gender Stereotype or Bias"
booktitle = "2021 CoNECD"
year = "2021"
month = "January"
address = "Virtual - 1pm to 5pm Eastern Time Each Day "
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/36116}
number = {10.18260/1-2--36116}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Qualitative Analysis of Undergraduate and Graduate Female Engineering Students’ Strategies to Response to Gender Bias

Keywords: Undergraduate, Graduate, Engineering, Gender.

Abstract 
Innovation in science and technology is an integral part of the United States economy, and the scientific advances and technological novelty of the country have a global impact (Xie et al., 2015). However, concerns about the ability of the country to maintain its role in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) innovation have increased over the last decades (Xie et al., 2015). The federal government declared STEM fields as “areas of national need”, highlighting the need for a larger workforce in these fields (Kanny et al., 2014). In the United States and other industrialized countries, more women than men obtain college degrees (Leaper & Starr, 2019). However, undergraduate female students remain low with an average enrollment of 20% in many STEM disciplines (Smith & Gayles, 2018). Furthermore, the underrepresentation of women is prolific throughout all higher academic and professional levels (Eddy & Brownell, 2016). In the past seven years, about half of the doctorate degrees in science and engineering are earned by women but female faculty in engineering and science only reached 5% and 2% respectively (Shen, 2013). In the United States, women represent 25% of the workforce in STEM, in engineering this percentage decreases to 14% (Ellis et al., 2016). Underrepresentation of women in STEM is characterized by lower enrollment and higher attrition when compared with male peers (Smith & Gayles, 2018). More than 66% of women abandon engineering fields 15-years after obtaining their degree. This alarming rate is 100% higher than the men’s rate (Buse et al., 2013). Social climate represents a prevailing reason for women to abandon STEM careers (Leaper & Starr, 2019). Academic or professional social climates refer to “characteristics of the psychosocial environment” (Allodi, 2010, p.89). 
Research suggests that women’s sense of belonging towards STEM can be influenced positively and negatively by family, instructors, and peers (Leaper & Starr, 2019). Social climate characteristics include membership, influence, the fulfillment of needs, and shared emotional connection(Pretty, 1990). Membership encompasses emotional safety and fillings of belonging, influence refers to the individuals’ freedom of choice, the fulfillment of needs in a community is the factor that represents togetherness, and shared emotional denotes the quality of the interactions between community members (Pretty, 1990). Gender bias towards girls and women is common in fields in which there exists a greater disparity between the proportion of males and females (Robnett, 2016). Prior research also implies that women are exposed constantly to negative messages about their ability to succeed in STEM fields (Stout et al., 2011).  Furthermore, experiencing bias could lead to low women’s self-concept in STEM (Robnett, 2016). Self-concept is defined as the “extent to which individuals believe they are capable of excelling” (Robnett, 2016, p.67). Additionally, women from typically underrepresented groups do not respond to support strategies as well as women from non-minority groups  (Grossman & Porche, 2014). 
Evidence suggests that bias towards women in STEM fields exists and it could represent a decisive factor first for pursuing and later for staying in STEM careers (Robnett, 2016). Several universities recognize the need for specialized programs to help their current students. For example, the purpose of a Women in Engineering Program (WIEP) is to create opportunities for professional development, provide strategies and training for succeeding in engineering, and give encouragement to students. Female engineering students, at the Midwest University in which the study was conducted, involved with WIEP have the opportunity to interact face to face with alumnae (recent graduates and established professionals) who share their tips for success, career choices, and academic and professional life experiences. Formal and informal mentoring programs for graduate and undergraduate students are also available. Mentoring has been proven to effectively increase the retention of female engineering students (Haque et al., 2006). Finally, awards and grants are available, though WIEP, for graduate students to present their novel research at professional conferences. 
Extensive quantitative research around gender bias has been done, however, qualitative analysis in the topic is still scarce. The goal of this study is to examine the strategies used by undergraduate and graduate female engineering students in response to gender bias in academic settings. The results obtained by surveying undergraduate and graduate women, who have, by the way, successfully passed many filters towards achieving a degree in engineering, may help researchers and policymakers create more impactful approaches with regard to gender bias in academic and workplace environments. To this end in the of Fall 2019, 431 participants were recruited from the Women in Engineering mentoring program at a Midwest university, 414 completed the survey thus achieving a response rate of 96.06% in one collection round. The sample was composed of first-year engineering students (56.76%), followed by sophomores (20.29%), juniors (10.39%), seniors (8.70%), and graduate students (3.86%). The most representative age range was from 18-20 years old with a total of 81.45%. The race/ethnicity demographics of the sample displayed that 62.89% of the participants were White/Caucasian, 23.61% Asian, 5.30% Hispanic/Latino, 2.89% African American/Black, 1.69% identified themselves as other, and 0.24% preferred not to answer. All available engineering majors at the university were represented in the sample with 235 first-year engineering, 27 electrical and computer engineering, 24 mechanical engineering, 24 chemical engineering, 19 industrial engineering, 18 biomedical engineering, 18 agricultural & biological engineering, 13 civil engineering, 11 aeronautics and astronautics, 10 materials engineering, 6 environmental & ecological engineering, 6 interdisciplinary & multidisciplinary engineering, and 1 nuclear engineering.
The data were collected using an on-line survey, powered using Qualtrics, that was filled out anonymously by the participants. The assessment used was comprised of 14 multiple-choice questions and one open-ended question. A qualitative analysis is currently ongoing using descriptive codding to obtain codes, categories, and themes from the collected data. This inductive approach was selected as it allows the understanding of experiences and identification of unanticipated phenomena (Buse et al., 2013). The open-ended question under analysis was: How did you deal with the gender stereotype or bias you faced? The following are of examples of responses under analysis: “I worked harder to prove them and me I could do the job.”, “I held my head high and proved them and myself that I could more then exceed their expectations”, and “Ignored it”.
Our results show that out of the 414 participants, 81.93% had faced gender stereotyping or bias by the time the data was collected. Preliminary results from the quantitative analysis suggest that strategies to deal with bias changed based on academic level (first-year engineering, sophomores, juniors, seniors, graduate master, graduate Ph.D.). Additionally, a correlation between strategies and engineering field will be conducted to examine differences between fields that attract more women, such as biomedical engineering, with fields with acute underrepresentation, such as aeronautics and astronautics engineering. 
References
Allodi, M. W. (2010). The meaning of social climate of learning environments: Some reasons why we do not care enough about it. Learning Environments Research, 13(2), 89–104. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10984-010-9072-9
Buse, K., Bilimoria, D., & Perelli, S. (2013). Why they stay: Women persisting in US engineering careers. Career Development International, 18(2), 139–154. https://doi.org/10.1108/CDI-11-2012-0108
Eddy, S. L., & Brownell, S. E. (2016). Beneath the numbers: A review of gender disparities in undergraduate education across science, technology, engineering, and math disciplines. Physical Review Physics Education Research, 12(2), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.12.020106
Ellis, J., Fosdick, B. K., & Rasmussen, C. (2016). Women 1.5 times more likely to leave stem pipeline after calculus compared to men: Lack of mathematical confidence a potential culprit. PLoS ONE, 11(7), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0157447
Grossman, J. M., & Porche, M. V. (2014). Perceived Gender and Racial/Ethnic Barriers to STEM Success. Urban Education, 49(6), 698–727. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085913481364
Haque, T., Marszalek, J., & Linnemeyer, S. a. (2006). The Longitudinal Effects of a Women ’ s Mentoring Course on the Retention of Women in Engineering. Proceedings of the 2006 WEPAN Conference, Copyright 2006, WEPAN-Women in Engineering Programs and Advocates Network, 1–15.
Kanny, M. A., Sax, L. J., & Riggers-Pieh, T. A. (2014). Investigating forty years of stem research: How explanations for the gender gap have evolved over time. Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, 20(2), 127–148. https://doi.org/10.1615/JWomenMinorScienEng.2014007246
Leaper, C., & Starr, C. R. (2019). Helping and Hindering Undergraduate Women’s STEM Motivation: Experiences With STEM Encouragement, STEM-Related Gender Bias, and Sexual Harassment. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 43(2), 165–183. https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684318806302
Pretty, G. M. H. (1990). Relating psychological sense of community to social climate characteristics. Journal of Community Psychology, 18(1), 60–65. https://doi.org/10.1002/1520-6629(199001)18:1<60::AID-JCOP2290180109>3.0.CO;2-J
Robnett, R. D. (2016). Gender Bias in STEM Fields: Variation in Prevalence and Links to STEM Self-Concept. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 40(1), 65–79. https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684315596162
Shen, H. (2013). Mind the gender gap. Nature, 495(22), 22–28. https://doi.org/10.1145/2003616.2003637
Smith, K. N., & Gayles, J. G. (2018). “Girl Power”: Gendered academic and workplace experiences of College Women in Engineering. Social Sciences, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci7010011
Stout, J. G., Dasgupta, N., Hunsinger, M., & McManus, M. A. (2011). STEMing the Tide: Using Ingroup Experts to Inoculate Women’s Self-Concept in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(2), 255–270. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021385
Xie, Y., Fang, M., & Shauman, K. (2015). STEM Education. Annual Review of Sociology, 41(1), 331–357. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-071312-145659

AU  - Mayari Illarij Serrano Anazco
AU  - Suzanne Zurn-Birkhimer
AU  - Grace Gilan Kraus
CY  - Virtual - 1pm to 5pm Eastern Time Each Day 
DA  - 2021/01/24
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Qualitative Analysis of Undergraduate and Graduate Female Engineering Students’ Strategies in Response to Gender Stereotype or Bias
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/36116
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--36116
ER  -