Examining Stereotype Threat in Engineering Education
Exploring the experiences of female engineering students facing stereotype threat, this critical theoretical framework study sheds light on the challenges that impact their academic journey. Through narrative inquiry methodology, the research focuses on white female students to understand how stereotype threat manifests in engineering environments and what strategies can help overcome it.
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THE APPLICATION OF CRITICAL THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS: Too Black to be a Woman and Too Much Woman to be a Man Stacie LeSure, Ph.D. Engineers for Equity, LLC stacielesure@engineers4equity.org 202.794.4585
Black women have on one hand always been highly visible, and so, on the other hand, have been rendered invisible through the depersonalization of racism. Audre Lourde
AGENDA Personal Journey in Engineering Overview of 3 Studies Stereotype Threat and White Female Engineering Students Stereotype Threat and Black Female Engineering Students A Qualitative Investigation of the Experiences of Black Women in Pursuit of Doctorate and Postdoctoratein Engineering and Computer Science
MOTIVATION Ph.D. Candidate: 5 Years (ABD) Materials Science and Engineering 3.8 GPA Passed Qualifying Exams Wrote andDefended 100 page Research Proposal Why did I leave before earning the degree? Are there others with similar stories ?
STUDY #1: White Female Engineering Students and Stereotype Threat
RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1. Do female students experience STT in engineering classrooms/environments? If so, how? 2. What situations in engineering classrooms/environments permit female engineering students to feel more comfortable and overcome STT?
METHODOLOGY Narrative inquiry interest in life experiences as narrated by those who live them meaning making (shaping or ordering of experiences) a way of: 1. 2. organizing events and objects into a meaningful whole 3. connecting and seeing the consequences of actions and events over time (Chase, 2011) understanding one s own or others actions
METHODOLOGY 10 Participants o White female engineering students 2 Face-to-Face Interviews o introduced to STT o semi-structured o 2 weeks apart o audio recorded and transcribed Journal Reflections (1 week) o compare/contrast classes encounters that trigger STT or protect from STT
PARTICIPANTS Pseudonym Aphrodite Ceres Demeter Eos Freya Hera Pomona Rhea Selene Venus Engineering Major Civil Status Second Year Home Town Utah Civil First Year New Mexico Mechanical Third Year Utah Environmental Third Year Colorado Civil First Year Utah Mechanical Second Year Utah Biological First Year Utah Electrical Second Year Utah Electrical Second Year Utah Biological First Year Idaho
5 THEMES 1. Competition 2. Invisible 3. Care 4. Silence 5. Received Knowledge
THEME 1: COMPETITION Stereotype Threat FEAR/ANXIETY/PROVE WORTHINESS DEMETER: I can t raise my hand and ask a question. All it takes is a couple of guys who deem it as a stupid question, and it s not just that was a stupid question, it s that girl is stupid. APHRODITE: I have to outperform people because I m the minority. I have to prove that it s okay that I am here as a female, you need to be above average, because if you are average, you re failing. HERA: Engineering is hard for me...I definitely feel that I have to prove that I m smarter than everyone else.
THEME 1: COMPETITION Stereotype Threat DOMAIN DETACHMENT POMONA: I have definitely considered changing to biology,,,, Biology seems a lot more equal, and I wouldn t feel as pressured to do as well in biology everyone has different ways of being smart, or struggling to understand. You feel like your gender doesn t matter.
THEME 1: COMPETITION Stereotype Threat STEREOTYPE ENDORSEMENT FREYA: I realized that I think there is a competitive feeling between girls in engineering. That instead of bonding together, and helping each other out, we sometimes do the opposite. POMONA: With the other women, I have to compete against them to prove that I am a smart woman.
THEME 1: COMPETITION Stereotype Threat STEREOTYPE ENDORSEMENT VENUS: I have a tendency to focus myself towards the male engineers, and not the females. I think if we all get together in a group, we just feel dumber than all the guys that get together in a group. We want to be surrounded by these people that we think are really smart instead of surrounding ourselves with people that we think are the exact same that we are. SELENE : ...It s how the girl phrases the question ..it makes me feel like it s not an important question, because she sounds stupid .I think the majority of the girls are struggling and the majority of guys aren t.
THEME 2: INVISIBLE FREYA (comment from Professor): Let s see if we can get some girls to come up here . don t bring up the difference it doesn t matter. We are all here doing the same thing . Don t call out a girl, let s just call on a student. SELENE: Guys would come up and start judging me. As soon as I cut my hair, they didn t even look at me twice because at a quick glance you couldn t tell if I were a girl or a guy. VENUS: I feel much more comfortable around guys than I do with girls because I never had a sister. I never went shopping or did nails. I played in the mud.
THEME 3: CARE APHRODITE: even if the professors cannot remember your name, if they act like they care, that is important .If they are willing to treat me and the class like they actually care. EOS: I thought he was a great professor and he cared a lot about his students whether they were male or female. SELENE: You know they recognize you if they call you by name. I think it means that they are not just up there preaching. They are actually trying to teach you and they care.
THEME 3: CARE POMONA: It just makes you feel like it s important to them that you are in their class. They care about you and your grade. VENUS: One of my professors .I saw him one day I went up to him, he knew who I was. He knew my name. He knew what class I was in .He and I started to talk. I had a question about one thing we were doing He was with his daughter, but he stopped for a minute and told me what I needed to understand. He was willing to do that ..And I did go to his office hours afterwards. He was a lot more personable. He was a lot more comfortable with the students. He cared.
THEME 4: SILENCE Women s ways of knowing a position in which women experience themselves as mindless and voiceless and subject to the whims of external authority Belenky et al., 1986 POMONA: refused to ask questions because she does not want her classmates to think, She s a woman so she s dumb, and she s asking a dumb question. RHEA: I don t want to ask a question and then realize that it was a dumb question, and then all these guys are watching me and they ll think I m a dumb girl.
THEME 4: SILENCE Women s ways of knowing SELENA: I m an outgoing person, I talk to people. I won t ask questions in class, nope. APHRODITE: In high school I was one of those people, that if I had a question, I was going to ask it until I got my answer. Now I definitely don t do that as much.
THEME 5: RECEIVED KNOWLEDGE Women s ways of knowing VENUS: I think we put them [male students] up higher just because we ve had that planted into our brains that engineering is more of a male profession. EOS: When a girl asks a question about homework due on Friday, I don t pay as much attention. But when a boy asks a question, I take notes and feel that specific homework question must be difficult. The professor seems to reflect my feelings by his body language.
Study #2 African American Engineering Students and Stereotype Threat
RESEARCH QUESTION How do African American women resist or overcome stereotype threat and persist in undergraduate engineering degree programs?
METHODOLOGY Recruited 25 participants from 9 Engineering Schools across the United States African American FemalePersisters (8 semesters) Triangulated Data 2 interviews (Skype/Phone) Reflective Writing Subramaniam, B. (2000). Snow Brown and the Seven Detergents: a metanarrative on science and the scientific method.Women's Studies Quarterly, 296-304. Literature on STT
Themes Categories Alienation/Isolation (A/I) Need to Prove Self (NTPS) Self-Doubt/Questioning of Belongingness (SD) Assumptions/Expectations/Perceptions (of others) (AEP) Lack of awareness/understanding (of others) (LAU) Microaggressions (MA) Uncaring/Discouraging Professors (UDP) Group Dynamics (GD) Health Issues (HI) White Males (WM) Active Involvement with Black Community on Campus (ACTIV) Desire to give back/Inspire next generation (D2GB) Faith, Family and Community (FFC) Identity/Strong Sense of Self (I/SSS) Pride/Passion/Commitment to be an engineer (PPCE) Self-Advocacy (SA) Proof STT Exists Primary Contributors to STT Secondary Factors Tools for Persistence
FINDINGS PROOF STEREOTPE THREAT EXISTS: NEED TO PROVE SELF My whole collegiate experience I ve had to prove myself. I have to prove myself to the Aerospace Engineering department head. I have to prove myself to my family and friends. This is something that I have wanted to do my entire life. I have to prove to myself that I can do it. Why would I want to do something so badly if it wasn t for me? In the department, I have to prove that I am smart. I am not here just to fill a quota. I take it upon myself to do a little extra than my teammates. I go above and beyond so that I can have a technical explanation to give to the professor and my teammates. I want them to know that I can do more than scribe. PRIMARY CONTRIBUTORS TO STT: MICROAGRESSIONS One of the main ways I experience stereotype threat is being a Black woman and walking into a classroom. The environment changes in general. First of all, people think that I am lost, initially. I get questions like, Can I help you? Microaggressions like that are really common. People think I don t belong because I don t look like the typical Medical Physicist or Nuclear Engineer.
FINDINGS SECONDARY FACTORS: GROUP DYNAMICS People always assume that they don t want me in their group. I always end up in the minority group. I get pigeonholed into being around people who look like me. I don t have a problem being around people who look like me. But ideally, I would like to broaden my network. TOOLS FOR PERSISTAECE: PRIDE/PASSION/COMMITMENT TO BE AN ENGINEER (PPCE) I try to remember that the reason I am in this field is because I am passionate about it. I feel happy and strong that I am forging my path based on my interest and not what society tells me to be.
RECOMMENDATIONS 1. Encourage mentorship and have measures in place to ensure that female (and other underrepresented) students have access to appropriate mentors. Promote the importance of seeking academic assistance and create conditions so that female (and other underrepresented) students feel secured enough to ask for help. 2. Provide resources, including safe meeting spaces for female (and other underrepresented) students to form student groups in which they can support and encourage each other. 3. Host networking socials to foster relationships between female (and other underrepresented) students and others in the engineering college. 4. 5. To inspire young female (and other underrepresented) students to pursue engineering careers, teach them real engineering and avoid strategies that perpetuate stereotypes.
The Niela Project Increase understanding of the dynamics and factors that Black doctoral women s experiences may have on their academic persistence and overall well-being in engineering and computer science The Niela Project Website | www.sites.uci.edu/thenielaproject This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. EEC-1648332 and EEC-1647986. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
Study #3 THE NIELA PROJECT: A QUALITATIVE INVESTIGATION OF THE EXPERIENCES OF BLACK WOMEN IN PURSUIT OF DOCTORATES AND POST-DOCTORATES IN ENGINEERING AND COMPUTING
Ni-E-la African name that means she who succeeds or perseveres (sometimes spelled Nyela)
The Niela Project aims to increase understanding of Black female doctoral experiences and how they impact their academic persistence and overall well- being in computing.
Primary Research Question What are the perceptions of the experiences of Black women pursuing doctoral degrees in engineering or computer science? 1.How do Black women pursuing doctoral degrees in engineering and computer science perceive and characterize their experiences while enrolled in their programs? 2.How do Black women shape their academic persistence and overall well-being?
Advisor Dynamics Token/The Lone Ranger Code-switching Support/Bigger than Me
Advisor Dynamics As far as with my advisor, I feel like he's not as helpful with encouraging me to stay. Encouraging is not necessarily a word that I would use for him. Yeah, I feel like I stay and persist in spite of him and not because of him because I'm just like okay, I have to motivate myself if I'm going to work with him. Code Switching: it's hard to feel like I'm juggling two different versions of me Tokenism the unicorn. It's like when someone sees you and they're like oh wow, you exist. I think that's being a Black woman in engineering.
Strategies and Practices Meaningful and intentional mentorship and advising Career development opportunities Strong and healthy relationships Personal wellness
Q & A Q & A
