Female Recruits Explore Engineering
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FREE People More About FREE NSF Highlights Eye on Research JAM Poster Photos Video Clips Sample Activity Timeline Presentations AERA 2009 Session Introduction Eisenhart et al. 2009a Eisenhart et al. 2009b Bruning et al. 2009 Bystydzienski & Brown 2009 Lectures
Recent Presentations
WEPAN, Apr 12-14, 2010 (Baltimore) www.wepan.org AERA, Apr 30-May 4, 2010 (Denver) www.aera.net ASEE, Jun 20-23, 2010 (Louisville) www.asee.org AAA, Nov 17-21, 2010 (New Orleans) www.aaanet.org Reports July 2010
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GoalsFemale Recruits Explore Engineering is an outreach and research project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The outreach portion was designed to spark and sustain academically-talented minority girls' interest in engineering. The research portion explored how young women come to know and learn about engineering. The overall purpose is to support academically able young women to think seriously about engineering as a career. PartnersThe study involves three universities: Iowa State University (Dr. Monica Bruning, PI), University of Colorado (Dr. Margaret Eisenhart, PI), and Ohio State University (Dr. Jill Bystydzienski, PI); 131 girls from 7 high schools in Iowa, Colorado, and Ohio; and business partners: US Cellular, Verizon Wireless, Research in Motion (RIM), and Iowa Engineering Society. ActivitiesFemale Recruits Explore Engineering (FREE) is a collaborative research and outreach program conducted by researchers and educators from the University of Colorado-Boulder, Iowa State University and Ohio State University. The 10-person research team has expertise in educational research, engineering, women’s studies, sociology, higher education, computer science, and bilingual education. In Fall 2006, the team identified 131 10th grade girls with strong academic records in mathematics and science at 7 high schools in 3 states (Colorado, Iowa, and Ohio) and invited them to participate in an after-school program to explore career possibilities in engineering; the girls included Latinas, African-Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and a few Whites; two-thirds of the girls lived in families that qualify for free or reduced lunch at school; very few had even considered engineering as a college or career choice. As such, they were part of the "untapped pool" of young women academically prepared to pursue engineering but not already planning to do so. Beginning in early 2007, we met monthly with the girls to explore engineering, meet practicing engineers, visit engineering workplaces, discuss the pros and cons of engineering, and conduct hands-on engineering, all in an effort to increase the girls’ knowledge of and interest in engineering. We developed a secure website for the girls to share their explorations, and we gave each girl a Blackberry smartphone to communicate with other FREE participants. In fall 2008, the intervention portion of FREE ended, but we continued to follow the remaining girls (N=74)through summer 2009, when they graduated from high school. We also selected 24 of the remaining girls for case studies and interviewed them bi-monthly in 2008-09. We found that it was not hard to get these girls interested in engineering. A year and a half after the start of FREE, 56% of the girls were still participating, and 53% of them (30% of the original group) were considering engineering in college. These percentages held steady through most of the girls’ senior year, i.e., almost 3 years after FREE began. Apparently, high school was not too late to spark some talented minority girls’ interest in engineering. Hesitant at first, those who stayed in FREE found time, energy, and money to visit college engineering programs, get to know engineering professionals, identify engineering projects of interest to them, and complete their own small-scale engineering projects (see Video Clips for an example). But by the time the girls actually entered college (Fall, 2009), only 20% of those who continued in FREE (11% of the original group) chose engineering as a possible major; another 28% chose a science or math field; and 32% chose a non-STEM field (the rest remain undecided or did not attend college). Table 1: FREE Girls' Trajectories of Interest in Engineering A B C D E F G H
Table 1 gives the numbers and percentages of girls who started the FREE program in Spring 2007 (A); who were considering engineering at the start (B); and who were still in FREE in August 2008 (C). The last 5 columns give the numbers and percentages of those who continued in FREE as of August 08 and: were considering engineering at that time (D); had considered engineering the whole time (E); had never considered engineering (F); had switched away from considering engineering (G); had switched into engineering (H) over the course of the program. (Percentages rounded to nearest whole number.) Table 2: Retention in FREE and Engineering  Given that most of the FREE girls had little knowledge of engineering and were not already considering it when the program began, the percentages of girls who stayed in FREE for at least 18 months and those who developed an interest in engineering during the program were healthy. But the percentages of girls who actually enrolled in engineering in college were disappointing, with CO being the lowest, IA in the middle, and OH the highest. For those who moved away from engineering, their move seemed to occur in the last few months of high school and during the summer before college. Our analysis of the circumstances surrounding the drop-off in interest suggests that many of the girls faced barriers--not in engineering itself--but to getting into a college with an engineering program and actually enrolling in a college with an engineering program. The challenges seemed to come, in large part, from a lack of economic, social, and cultural capital (or resources) to make the transition from high school to college engineering. The CO group, with the least access to capital, had the most trouble (only 4% of the original group chose an engineering major); the IA group, with somewhat more access to capital, did better (13%); and the OH group, with the most access to capital, did best (30%). We are continuing to analyze the data for more information about this. |