Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-27-2025
Department
Department of Psychology and Human Factors
Abstract
Societies realize the value of increasing the number of engineering and other STEM graduates, yet universities often struggle to enroll and retain STEM students, particularly women. To remedy this, many engineering programs have shifted their pedagogical approaches to include project-based learning in group settings. However, prior research on engineering teams revealed, for example, gender gaps in active participation, reflecting stereotypes of men as engineering experts and women as supporters. In the current study, we examined the long-term correlates of such gaps. Specifically, in a mixed-method study (behavioral observation, surveys, and longitudinal follow-up) we found gender differences in active technical participation during students’ first year in engineering project group presentations, such that men engaged in more active participation than women (N = 589). Longitudinal follow-ups in their final year revealed that first year technical participation was a predictor of feelings of belonging, and these feelings of belonging in turn predict retention in engineering majors and intentions to pursue graduate education in engineering. Together, these results suggest that the first year engineering team experience plays an important role in retaining students and highlight opportunities for early interventions.
Publication Title
Behavioral Sciences
Recommended Citation
Lewis, N.,
Russell Pascual, N.,
Sekaquaptewa, D.,
&
Meadows, L. A.
(2025).
First Year to Future Career: Women’s Engagement in Technical Participation Is Associated with Long-Term Retention.
Behavioral Sciences,
15(2), Article 140.
http://doi.org/10.3390/bs15020140
Retrieved from: https://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/michigantech-p2/1544
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Publisher's Statement
Publisher's record: https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15020140
© 2025 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).