Understanding the Experience of Women in Undergraduate Engineering Programs at Public Universities

Abstract Title: Understanding the Experience of Women in Undergraduate Engineering Programs at Public Universities Women earn bachelor’s degrees in engineering at a rate of less than 17% at public universities in California, a number less than the low national average. The purpose of this study was to understand how women experience undergraduate engineering programs at public universities. To understand this lack of attainment, a qualitative methodology and Feminist Poststructuralist theoretical framework were employed. This allowed the voices of the women and their lived experiences to be preserved and highlighted the social, structural and curricular constraints on the field that shaped the women’s experiences. The data of the study was gathered from interviews with 22 women in various stages of their engineering education- half after degree completion and half after two-third of coursework was completed- and discourse analysis in various sections of engineering gatekeeper courses (Statics, Dynamics, and Strength of Materials). This three staged approach to the research gave a quasi-longitudinal picture of the experience of the women and focused on those women who has persisted in engineering to obtain a bachelor’s degree. The following questions were examined: How do women experience undergraduate engineering programs at public universities? What role does classroom discourse play in shaping women’s experience in “gatekeeper” courses? The data was analyzed through a lens of Feminist Poststructuralism and Sense-making for the following themes to emerge from the data: the journey of a cultural migrant, negotiating comparative norming, and outcome expectancy. The experience of the women is a journey of a cultural migrant; they leave one culture for anther and learn new cultural norms. The women are negotiating comparative norming, meaning they define their success in reference to another’s. This results in a fluid sense of identity and knowledge. Finally, the women are motivated by outcome expectancy, the promise of a secure future.