EQUALITY GUIdE - KU Leuven

Chapter 3 ! Career management 167
the data. The guiding letter also explained why the research was conducted and stressed
the importance of the survey to gain input for an action plan for the faculty on equal
opportunities and diversity. For questions about the content of the survey the respondents
could contact the researcher of the Diversity Policy Office (see guiding letter and survey in
Tool Annex).
Sending out the survey three times contributed to a high response rate of 53.70%. The
data were put in a file by a student, paid by the Faculty Board that showed its commitment
in this way. All analyses were made with the statistical program SPSS 193 . The first
type of questions (experience/situation) was tested on significant differences by means of
the P-test. The second type (opinion on a scale from 1 to 6) was tested by means of t-
tests: the difference in averages were tested on significance. In the statistics a result is
called significant when the difference in results is not caused by coincidence, but by
something else.
No conclusions could be drawn about quitting ‘the doctoral research’ (part 4) and ‘the
scientific career’ (part 5) of the respondents, as not enough respondents filled in this part.
In general, the respondents were highly satisfied about the Master year. Fewer female
respondents had the intention to start a doctorate; more male respondents wrote a research
proposition. Scientific ambition and external stimuli were the main reasons to start
a doctoral research. A quarter of the women indicated having started doctoral research as
a preparation to a career outside the university. The guidance of the promoter and the
faculty in general scored very highly. An important conclusion however was that female
respondents seemed to have fewer formal interviews (performance interview, evaluation
interview). The female and male respondents all considered a good work/life balance to
be important: sufficient room for other engagements was deemed necessary. Those still
working at the faculty were highly satisfied with the terms of employment except for the
level of ‘support/mentorship’ and ‘the workload’. Of the respondents that left the faculty,
the majority of women indicated working in an educational institution while the majority
of men indicated performing scientific research.
Provisional results were first discussed at a meeting of the working group on equal opportunities
and diversity of the faculty. The feedback of the members of the working group
was included in a final report that was presented to different organs of the faculty. The
Faculty Board was positive about the final report and about the idea of mentoring trajectories
put forward in the policy recommendations to guarantee sustainable coaching.
193 SPSS 12.0 for Windows 12.0. Copywrite ©SPSS Inc., 1998-2003.