Transcript Document

Misdirected Decisions: Girls and
Careers in Engineering and Technology
Betty Shanahan
Executive Director & CEO
Society of Women Engineers
The Society of Women Engineers
•
Founded in 1950, the Society of
Women Engineers (SWE) is the
driving force that establishes
engineering as a highly desirable
career aspiration for women.
•
SWE empowers women to
succeed and advance in those
aspirations and receive the
recognition and credit for their lifechanging contributions and
achievements as engineers and
leaders.
SWE Structure
• A multi-disciplinary educational and scientific
501(c)(3), tax-exempt organization
• Members are from all engineering disciplines
• 19,000 members (55% students)
– 100 professional sections
– 300 student sections
Alignment of AGELE and SWE
• Gender equity in the recruitment and retention of
girls/young women into technology and engineering
takes
– Understanding barriers to girls identifying with
technology and engineering careers
– Building their technical confidence
– Highlighting the value of technology to society
– Understanding career opportunities and realities
• This talk is about offering valuable options to young
women
Agenda
• Current status
• Background research
• Strategies
Research References
•
Michigan Study of Adolescent and Adult Life Transitions
– Jacquelynne Eccles, Senior Research Professor
University of Michigan Institute for Social Research
University of Michigan Institute for Research on Women and Gender
•
Stereotype Threat (Steele & Aronson, 1995) Recommendations
– Toni Schmader, Associate Professor of Psychology
University of Arizona
•
WGBH Research study for Extraordinary Women Engineers Project
www.engineeringwomen.org
– Coalition of 55 engineering organizations and institutions
– Why academically-prepared girls are not choosing engineering?
•
ASEE Engineering in the K-12 Classroom www.engineeringk12.org
•
Joanne Martin, Stanford GSB, Gendered Organizations
•
Bayer Parents Study www.bayerus.com
Women and Minorities as a Proportion of First-Year
Undergraduate Engineering Enrollments, 1990 to 2003
25.0
20.0
Percent
Women
15.0
African Am.
Hispanic
10.0
Asian
Nat. Amer.
5.0
Foreign Nat.
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
1991
1990
0.0
Source: CPST, data derived from Engineering Workforce Commission
First-year enrollment in engineering dropped 3% to 103,834 in 2003. Even more disturbing
is the continuing decline in recent years of women and African Americans as a proportion
of first year enrollments.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology (CPST), http://www.cpst.org
Advanced Placement Tests
In 2004
– 55% of Overall AP test-takers were girls
– 48% of Calculus AP test-takers were girls
– 15% of Computer Science AP test-takers
were girls
Engineering Undergraduates
•
Women:
– 20% of engineering undergraduates (16.9% of freshmen)
– 55% of all undergraduates
•
African-Americans
– 5.3% of engineering undergraduates
– 10.8% of all undergraduates
•
Latinos
– 5.4% of engineering undergraduates
– 6.4% of all undergraduates
•
The percentages in engineering have been decreasing in recent years,
while overall participation in higher education among these groups has
increased considerably.
Background Research
Imposter Syndrome
• Research on high-achieving women (Clance & Imes,
1978) showed:
– Female clients unable to internalize their
accomplishments
– External proof of intelligence and ability dismissed
– Successes credited to luck, timing, perseverance,
fooling others
– Didn’t fully enjoy successes and seize opportunities
– Overwork to compensate for supposed deficiencies
Imposter Syndrome Symptoms
– Focus on weaknesses rather than strengths
– Don’t ask for necessary resources to do the
job – I should do it
– Self-defeating attitudes in speech
– Don’t take credit for accomplishments
The Pressure of Being
One of the First
Being I am a woman, I must make unusual
efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say
she doesn’t have what it takes. They will say
“women don’t have what it takes.”
Clare Booth Luce (1903 - 1987)
US diplomat, dramatist,
journalist, & politician
Contextual Influences
on Performance
Work of Toni Schmader
Associate Professor of Psychology
University of Arizona
Stereotype Threat
Steele & Aronson (1995)
– When individuals feel that they might be
judged in terms of a negative stereotype or
that they might do something that would
inadvertently confirm that stereotype.
– Affects women’s performance in math and
sciences
– Affects intellectual performance of minority
students
Test Performance Can Be Affected by
How the Task Is Described
White
13
Black
10
7
4
1
Gender Differences in
Math Performance
Test Performance
(controlling for SAT)
Test Performance
(controlling for SAT)
Racial Differences in
Verbal Performance
100
Men
80
Women
60
40
20
0
Verbal Ability
Lab Exercise
Test Description
Math Ability
Problem
Solving
Test Description
Steele & Aronson (1995)
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Johns, Schmader, & Martens (2005)
Psychological Science
Contextual Cues to Stereotype
Threat Reduce Test Performance
• Framing a task as a measure of ability
• Situational reminders of gender or race
• Effects shown with:
– College students
– High school students
– Middle school students
– Elementary school children
Manifestations of Threat
• Contexts that cue threat lead to:
– Lower test performance
– Lower self-confidence
– Less interest science
– Less interest leadership roles
Closing the Gap
Solution 1: Creating a Threat Free Environment
Test Performance
corrected for SAT)
20
Men
Women
15
10
5
0
The Presence of People like Me
Test Performance
corrected for SAT)
The Benefits of Role Models
Men
Women
85
65
45
25
Study run by
competent male
Study run by
competent
female
Marx & Roman (2002)
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
In the minority
With same sex
others
Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev (2000)
Psychological Science
The Engineering Profession
Closing the Gap
Solution 2: Threat Inoculation through Education
100
95
90
End of
85
the Year
80
Math Test
Performance 75
70
65
60
Males
Females
Intelligence is
Incremental
Experiencing
Difficulty is
Normal
Anti-Drug
Control
Type of Intervention
Good, Aronson, & Inzlicht (2003) Applied Developmental Psychology
Closing the Gap
Solution 2: Threat Inoculation through Education
• Educators as ‘wise mentors’
– Speak out against the stereotype
– Set high standards but assure students that they can meet them
• Emphasizing skill over ability
– Highlight that learning is an incremental process
• Fostering a sense of belonging
– Help students reappraise the meaning of adversity
• Unveiling the effects of stereotype threat
– Point out that stereotypes are an external explanation for anxiety
Teaching Women about Stereotype Threat Inoculates
Them against Its Effects
Accuracy on Math Items
100
Men
Women
80
60
40
20
0
Math Ability
Test
Problem Solving Math Ability
Task
Test + Teaching
Johns, Schmader, & Martens (2005) Psychological Science
Michigan Study of Adolescent
and Adult Life Transitions
Work of Jacquelynne Eccles
Senior Research Professor
University of Michigan Institute for Social Research
University of Michigan Institute for Research on
Women and Gender
Girl’s Self-confidence
• Young women are more likely than young men
to have a lower opinion of their abilities in math
and science and in their general intellectual
abilities, even though young women had higher
college GPAs than young men
• Parents’ messages to daughters that undermine
both their daughters' confidence in their math
and science abilities and their interest in
pursuing careers in these fields.
Eccles Research
Messages to Girls and Self Perceptions
• Even though girls got better math grades than boys, parents of
daughters reported that math was more difficult for their child than
parents of sons.
• Parents of daughters said their girls had to work harder to do well in
math than parents of sons, even though teachers said that this was
not true
• Girls and their parents reported that girls worked harder in math than
in English, but student diaries showed that both boys and girls spent
more time on language arts than on math.
• For the math success of boys, parents rated talent and effort as
equally important. For the math success of girls, parents said hard
work was much more important than math talent.
Eccles Research
Eccles Research – Career Choice
• Young women were more likely than young men
to:
– Place a high value on occupations that
permitted flexibility and did not require them to
be away from their family
– Value working with people
– Value jobs that required them to supervise
other people
What Do Academically Prepared High
School Girls Think about Engineering?
• Engineering is for people who LOVE BOTH
math and science
• Don’t know what engineering is
• Don’t show an interest in the field nor do they
think it is "for them."
– Less than 10% of the full sample of high school girls
report being interested in becoming an engineer.
– Nearly 70% of the online survey sample actively
disagree that they’re interested in the field.
WGBH Study
Aligning Messages to Motivators
High School Girls
- Enjoying what I do
- Good working environment
- Making a difference
- Good income
- Flexibility
Engineering Community
- It’s a challenge
- Go for it! It’s difficult but rewarding
- Use math/science to solve problems
- Litany of disciplines and specialties
WGBH Study
From the Educator’s Perspective
• Teachers are overwhelmingly positive about engineering in the
abstract, extolling the virtues of an engineering education and
career.
• However, when it comes down to their students, they believe that
many—and especially females and minorities—cannot succeed in
the engineering world.
• Teachers were asked is majoring in engineering is more difficult than
majoring in:
– English: 32.5% strongly agreed and 30.9% agreed
– Finance: 26.0% strongly agreed and 29.8% agreed
– Sociology: 35.5% strongly agreed and 31.4% agreed
– Biology: 13.0% strongly agreed and 25.7% agreed
Engineering in the K-12 Classroom
Recruitment Collateral
Tailoring the Message
•
New jobs requiring science, engineering, or technical training are increasing
four times faster than the average national job growth rate1
•
2004 median engineer annual salary2
– Entry-level, bachelor’s degree: $50,600
– Entry-level, master’s degree: $61,008
– Entry-level, PhD:
$86,532
– Mid-career:
$79,623
•
Career opportunities
– Strong careers in academia with consulting/research opportunities
– Industry technical tracks – advanced degrees pursued while working
– Management/business tracks
– Outstanding foundation for degrees in medicine, law, business
•
The importance of what we do
(1) U.S. Department of Labor
(2) Engineering Workforce Commission, 2004
The Value of the Engineering Profession
• In the last 50 years, more than half of America’s
sustained economic growth was created by the 5% of
the workforce who create, manage, and maintain the
processes and products of innovation: engineers,
scientists, and advanced-degree technologists.
• As the number of jobs requiring engineering and
scientific training grows, the number of students
preparing for those careers remains level.
• This imbalance threatens our future economic
competitiveness, our quality of life, and our national
security.
The Importance of What We Do
“Engineering is also important. All of us want to have
confidence that the planes in which we fly are safe, that the
bridges we cross will stand, that offshore oil platforms will
be able to weather the elements and contain the pressures
found in reservoirs of oil and gas. We also want to have
better cars and faster computers and efficient appliances
with more conveniences. Engineering makes our lives
more secure, more comfortable, more rewarding. It gives
us possibilities and enrichments that earlier generations
could not have imagined.”
ExxonMobil Sponsored Op-Ed
New York Times, EWeek 2004
Science and Engineering Careers for
Their Children: Fantasy or Reality?
• 59% parents think an advanced degree beyond a college bachelor's
degree is necessary to have a job in science and engineering
• 64% of parents were surprised to learn that seven in 10 Americans
working in science or engineering today have a bachelor's degree or
less education
• 88% parents say that now knowing seven in 10 Americans working
in science or engineering today have a bachelor's degree or less
makes them think science and engineering hold realistic job
opportunities for their children
• 88% parents feel the S&E community needs to do a better job telling
today's students about these job opportunities
Bayer Parents Study
Strategies
The Authenticity Problem
Joanne Martin, Stanford GSB
•
Womens’ discomfort in male-dominated cultures
– Example: Female executives at very large technology corporation
“It takes too much energy to pretend to be someone other than who you
are. (They were) advising me to be less open, less participative, less
cooperative – to be not the way I am. It was a real dilemma for me.”
•
Heightened inauthenticity problems of minority women
•
Result: Women quit
•
Classic remedy: “Fix the women” with training in leadership, negotiation, etc
– Encourage women to act like men,
– Leaving inauthenticity problems intact,
– So drop out rates don’t change
Technical Confidence through
Technical Competence
• Don’t assume background knowledge that
makes understanding concepts or exercises
“hard”
• Develop fundamental skills
– Teach simple tools like screw drivers
– Computer use varies by gender (games vs
messaging)
– Exposure to technical drawings
Foster Inclusion Rather than Isolation
• Isolation
– Incidents that indicate that she is different
from everyone else
– Individual experience is trivial…
– But taken collectively and regularly, these
behaviors alienate women
• Support different communication style
• The pressure of being first
Selecting Classroom Materials
• Diversity obvious in images of engineers
• Teamwork featured
• Roles assigned and shifted throughout the
project
– Girls prefer role-playing over competition
– Girls wait to be invited
Selecting a Classroom Project
• Does the activity have a positive impact?
– Robots that battle each other
– Robots that perform a service for a person
• Is teamwork and partnership valued
• Does the activity have multidisciplinary components?
– Tradeoffs required for designs in Future City
Competition
– Customer requirements and marketing of a product to
be designed
Inviting Engineers into the
Classroom
www.eweek2006.org
Aligning Messages to Motivators
High School Girls
- Enjoying what I do
- Good working environment
- Making a difference
- Good income
- Flexibility
Engineering Community
- It’s a challenge
- Go for it! It’s difficult but rewarding
- Use math/science to solve problems
- Litany of disciplines and specialties
WGBH Study
What Messages About Engineering Will
Resonate with High-school Girls?
• The most effective messages used examples
that contained multiple career motivators.
• High school girls react positively to personal and
informational stories that tell more about the
engineering lifestyle.
• They’re interested in learning how engineering
aligns with their career motivators - enjoyable,
good working environment, making a difference,
income, and flexibility.
WGBH Study
What Are the Two Most Rewarding
Things About Being An Engineer?
• Involvement from start to finish provides
satisfaction
• Opportunity to have an impact
• It is challenging
• Diverse problems to solve which often requiring
creative thinking
• Financial benefits provide a sense of success
and comfort
WGBH Study
Additional Resources
• The Engineer of 2020 www.nap.edu
• Rising Above The Gathering Storm: Energizing and
Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future
www.nap.edu
• Society of Women Engineers
– www.swe.org
– www.developdesigndiscover.org
– www.eweek2006.org
– [email protected]
Thank you for all you do to support
gender equity in education!