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incorporate an inclusive pedagogical design, and suggestions for further research to
further validate the claims suggested by our findings.
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
Much research and rhetoric has been devoted to trying to understand why a higher
proportion of women opt out of undergraduate engineering programs, and to pinpoint the
alienating features of traditional programs. The major deterrents at the institutional level
to women’s persistence at the undergraduate level can be grouped into programmatic and
climate issues, summarized below and in Table IA-1.
TABLE IA-1
CHARACTERISTICS OF UNDERGRADUATE ENGINEERING WHICH
DETER WOMEN
PROGRAMMATIC ISSUES DIFFICULT FOR WOMEN IN TRADITIONAL
ENGINEERING EDUCATION
Competitive atmosphere; lack of cooperative pedagogy or group work
Inadequate opportunities for hands-on experience
Inadequate attention to contextual and social implications; narrow, fragmented
scope of application
Lack of validation of women’s experiences
CLIMATE ISSUES DIFFICULT FOR WOMEN IN TRADITIONAL
ENGINEERING EDUCATION
Impersonal faculty-student relationships
Lack of “community”
“Male” communication patterns
Few female role models
Women perceived as “other”
IA-19