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SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
We have shown that over the course of the academic year, experience in the Rowan
engineering program strengthens the engineering self-confidence of many of the women
in the first three years of the undergraduate program, and that this strengthening of self-
confidence is a process that happens more to the female students than to the male
students. The role of the school in increasing women’s self-confidence is strengthened
by the greater effect that participation in enrichment and help activities has for women
than for men. Males, in contrast, tend to lose self-confidence during the course of the
year, except in their senior year. These contrasting patterns may well reflect the gender
differences in participation in “support” activities, relationships with faculty and peers.
However, in their senior year, males’ gains in self-confidence result in their having a
much higher level of self-confidence than females at the end of their senior year.
In spite of the fact that they come with considerably less self-confidence in
themselves as engineers at the beginning of the freshman year, the integration of the
female students into the program is paralleled by their gains in general engineering self-
confidence at every level of the program. With regard to confidence in engineering
abilities, the picture is somewhat different. In almost all cases, both males and females
lose self-confidence in their engineering skills in the course of the academic year,
presumably as they encounter the difficulty of the program. However, the senior year
appears to be a main parting of the genders. Males’ self-confidence increases over the
course of the academic year; females’ self-confidence decreases. Therefore, at the end of
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