Minority report: female first year students’ experience of Engineering Teams

Abstract

As part of a wider HEFCE/Paul Hamlyn project entitled What works? Student retention and success 1 the impact of the introduction of team working on women students was evaluated. Women make up a small percentage of a large cohort of stage 1 students at the university studied. Evaluation of the initiative was conducted through a single focus group comprised of 90% of the women in the cohort, triangulated by retrospective analysis of online questionnaires from two cohorts of students. The qualitative data was analysed using the constant comparative method. While expressing their appreciation of participation, women described the strategies they employed to ensure their inclusion and success. Recommendations are made to enhance the experience of women within engineering teams.

Introduction

Newcastle University is an institution with a strong research emphasis and is a member of the Russell Group (which claims to represent the top twenty research intensive UK universities outside of Oxbridge). The School of Mechanical and Systems Engineering (within the Faculty of Science, Agriculture and Engineering (SAgE)) is one of the university’s five engineering schools. As in many similar UK universities, Newcastle’s cohort of stage 1 mechanical engineering students (all of whom study full time) tend to be male and aged 18–19. Women represent a minority, as shown in Table 1.

Prior to the academic year 2009/10 the proportion of students leaving their programme within the school between stage 1 and stage 2 varied between 17 and 20%. These losses remained somewhat lower than the national average (17–24%) within engineering and technology (HESA, 2011). Following the introduction of a pedagogical change in 2009/10 (described below), the number of students able to progress to stage 2 increased significantly; although it remained lower than average for the university (HESA). There is no indication that there is a high rate of attrition for women within the school and their small numbers make statistical comparison inappropriate. The new pedagogical approach aims to increase interaction between students and to facilitate peer learning and it was appropriate to evaluate every potential influence of these changes, including exploration of whether the experience of the small number of women currently enrolled in the programme differs significantly from that of the men.

Table 1. Comparison between school, university and UK continuation figures over a six year period

Academic year	05/06	06/07	07/08	08/09	09/10	10/11
No. of students registered	93	75	90	114	107	127
% (no.) female new entrants	7% (6)	9% (7)	7% (6)	10% (11)	8% (8)	9% (11)
% of registered progressing to stage 2 (% rate of attrition)	83% (17%)	83% (17%)	80% (20%)	83% (17%)	93% (7%)	90% (10%)
% (no.) female students progressing to stage 2	100% (6)	57% (4)	100% (6)	73% (8)	88% (7)	100% (11)
% UK rates of students registered on engineering and technology programmes no longer in higher education in their second year (HESA)*	24%	23%	21%	17%	Not yet available	Not yet available
% rate of attrition across Newcastle University measured against benchmark (HESA)*	3.5% (4.5%)	3.5% (4.2%)	4.0% (4.5%)	3.3% (4.5%)	2.5% (3.7%)	Not yet available

^* Higher Education Statistics Agency

Pedagogical changes

In the academic year 2009/10 “Engineering Teams” were introduced into stage 1 of the School of Mechanical and Systems Engineering’s programmes. From the first day of semester one, students are allocated (by staff) into teams of five. The allocation method ensures that each team includes a mix of skills and previous performances so that no teams consist only of academically high achieving students or, conversely, only those with relatively low entry grades. In addition (as far as possible), ex-foundation year and overseas students are distributed across the teams (Joyce and Hopkins, 2011). Care is taken to ensure that every woman student always has another female teammate. The teams are encouraged to organise themselves and work independently on several projects throughout the academic year and each has access to a tutor with whom they meet regularly. This initiative was introduced as part of the HEFCE/ Paul Hamlyn Foundation funded project What works? Student retention and success and the evaluation which follows took place initially as part of the project but is continuing despite its termination. (For a fuller description of the change in pedagogy and other changes which occurred during its introduction, see Joyce and Hopkins (2011).)

Review of the literature on women and engineering

The disparity between the number of women and men who study engineering and go on to practice as engineers is well established (de Cohen and Deterding, 2009; Department of Trade and Industry, 2006). The identification of this concern led to concerted efforts on the part of universities and professional bodies in many western countries (including the UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) to increase both the enrolment and retention of women in higher education engineering degree programmes (de Cohen and Deterding, 2009; Mills et al., 2010). Women’s choice to pursue engineering is often made late in their school career (Mills, 2011; Godfrey and King, 2011) and may be influenced by family or friends in the form of engineering role models (Phipps, 2002) or their wish to make a social contribution through engineering (Godfrey and King, 2011). In the UK, concerns about the low number of women in education or employment in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects has led to over 70 projects and initiatives to facilitate the entry of girls and women into these areas (Greenfield et al., 2002). Although these initiatives were successful in increasing the number of women in engineering, a peak was reached in 2003 and the impetus was subsequently lost, perhaps because of an assumption that sufficient change had been satisfactorily completed (Cronin and Roger, 1999; Godfrey and King, 2011; Mills, 2011).

In the UK, statistical data is collected by the Higher Education Statistics Agency under the classification “engineering and technology”. These figures are not disaggregated by gender. There are varying estimates for the number of women students in UK undergraduate engineering programmes given by various authoritative bodies, ranging from a stable figure over the past eight years of 12% (Engineering UK, 2011), 13% (HESA cited in Royal Academy of Engineering, 2009) and 14.9% (United Kingdom Resource Centre (UKRC) cited in Kirkup, 2010).

Certain kinds of engineering, including mechanical, computer and electrical, are less likely to attract women (de Cohen and Deterding, 2009). Between 2003/4 and 2009/10 the number of women in the UK graduating with a degree in mechanical engineering fell by 3.1% while the total of first degree qualifications in mechanical engineering rose by 13.1% overall (Engineering UK, 2012).

Any perception that women are more likely to abandon their course before completion is disputed by Ohland et al. (2008) and de Cohen and Deterding (2009). Possible reasons for women’s persistence may be that they are (as Mills et al. (2010) suggest) ‘a self-selected, highly resilient group’ (p.26). This idea is echoed by de Cohen and Deterding (2009) who describe women who persist as a ‘select group of well-prepared and motivated young women with clear career goals’ (p.222) and Henwood (1998, p.43), who writes that they are ‘really strong, determined characters’.

The Royal Academy of Engineering (2009) suggests that demographically there will soon be insufficient ‘white able bodied men under 45 years old’ (p.3), the traditional source of engineers. The recruitment and retention of women in engineering (along with other groups who have not traditionally chosen it as a career route, such as ethnic minorities and people with disabilities) will therefore be vital. Increasing the diversity of both engineering education and the workplace through the inclusion of women and other under-represented groups provides an opportunity to enrich and enhance the engineering ‘gene pool’ (Foor et al., 2007, p.103). In the UK, Greenfield et al. (2002) suggest that the dearth of women in the science, engineering and technology workforce ‘threatens to weaken the country’s competitive economic position’ (p.26).

A relatively small body of literature exists on the experience of women engineering students in higher education. In 1999 Cronin and Roger suggested that this lack of published data may be related to university priorities of undertaking work which could be included in the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). Although this has since been replaced with the Research Excellence Framework, it is likely that the emphasis on research over teaching is a constant one. Several authors examine the issue of gender in engineering and conclude that, as a minority group, women may be viewed as “problematic” or as outsiders (Stonyer, 2001; Phipps, 2002; Stonyer, 2002). Phipps (2002) suggests that societal perceptions of engineering as masculine deter women from entering the profession and that, as a result, the stereotype is reinforced. Stonyer (2001) expands this by suggesting that masculine and feminine engineering identities are constructed ‘independent of maleness or femaleness’ within education (p.157). Cronin and Roger (1999) suggest that this societallygenerated construction may mean that there is an assumption that women will “fit in”, rather than changes taking place within the educational environment to accommodate their needs.

If engineering education is perceived by women to be masculine they may also come to view it as “hostile” and an environment in which they “survive” rather than become engaged (Stonyer, 2002; Roberts and Ayre, 2002). In several institution-specific qualitative studies this was the case. Stonyer (2002) found that women adopted marginal identities, characterised as “almost guys”, “help-mates” and “power-puff girls” (those women who gained a sense of power through identification with male peers and their masculine environment), as a way of creating acceptable identities for themselves. Similarly, Henwood (1998) found that women within engineering education face the challenge of identifying themselves both as “the same as men” but, in doing so, also as “different from other women” and are thus forced to inhabit a liminal position.

Walker (2001) is hopeful that women such as her ‘confident and authoritative’ participants might be able to effect a change in culture, although she also warns that simply bringing more women into engineering may not be sufficient to change what she describes as ‘the constraints of a hegemonic masculinity’ (p.88).

Research methodology

During the second year of the implementation of Engineering Teams (2010/11), the effect on the group of 11 women who represented 9% of the stage 1 cohort was evaluated. The data collection method was in two parts: retrospective analysis of four items from an online questionnaire completed by two cohorts of students (2009/10 and 2010/11) and one focus group to which all women in the cohort were invited.

Two months after the beginning of the first semester in each academic year an online questionnaire is distributed to all students in stage 1 of the programme. This questionnaire asks six questions relating to practical issues and the students’ experience of being part of their Engineering Team. The questionnaire poses statements to which students are requested to answer on a yes/no basis or a Likert scale (See Appendix 1). They are also invited to include free text responses. These questionnaires are completed anonymously, although respondents are asked to indicate their gender. It was therefore possible to retrospectively separate female responses for two cohorts. These were then analysed and compared to the responses from male respondents.

The 11 women in stage 1 of the 2010/11 cohort were invited to take part in a focus group with a female independent researcher. The interview prompts are included in Appendix 2. Inviting all of the women to participate in the focus group offered an opportunity to witness them co-constructing their ideas through the creation of a group synergy which brings momentum to the discussion (Parker and Tritter, 2006). It also allowed the interviewer to observe and record the interactions taking place within the group, including instances of marginalisation. The focus group was recorded with the consent of all present and transcribed verbatim. Analysis of the transcripts was carried out by the researcher using the constant comparative method (Boeije, 2002). This method involves reading and rereading the single interview transcript in order to extract the core messages through a process of fragmenting and reconnecting the emerging themes. These were then discussed by the authors and key themes and their implications identified and agreed.

Findings

Reasons for choosing engineering

Of the 11 women in the cohort who were invited to take part in the focus group, ten accepted. Of these ten women, three were international students and three were classified by the university as mature students (over 21 years old). Most of the students needed only minimal prompting from the interviewer to contribute and interact with one another, although two seemed less at ease and their opinions were elicited with specific questions at appropriate points.

For all the participants, joining the programme had been had been a carefully considered decision. They talked about the skills and abilities they brought to their work, their curiosity, interest in sustainability, love of machinery and clear sense of a future in engineering. Two also said that environmental considerations would be important to them in their careers. They described themselves as being very strongly motivated, with a strong desire to succeed in their chosen career paths.

Having a female teammate

Although the women initially found it helpful to have a female teammate they were often ambivalent about it in the longer term. Although ‘knowing there is someone there for back up’ was helpful to them in the first instance, in the main the women did not see themselves as different from their male teammates and had no hesitation about, as one of them put it, ‘working with the lads’. Those who expressed an opinion saw themselves able to interact confidently with course mates and did not feel that the support of another woman was always necessary.

“Working with the lads”

Generally, working in a team with male colleagues was not seen as problematic. Participants described, often in a humorous way, how their attitudes and motivations were subtly different to those of the men and the strategies which they unreflectively used to deal with these differences. They commented that as women (and therefore a minority group) they needed to “prove themselves” to their male teammates in terms of their skills and knowledge and demonstrate that they were sufficiently robust to be able to “take” a level of teasing and banter without demur. This process of negotiation appeared necessary in order to gain full team membership. Women were amused when they were able to demonstrate greater skills than expected by either their male teammates or, on occasion, by workshop supervisors who, in an effort to be encouraging, had inadvertently become patronising, as this account from a participant demonstrates:

I had one of these blokes come up to me and he was [mimicking an excited tone] ‘did you do this all yourself?’ and I said ‘yes’. ‘Oh I am not joking this is really good’ and he got all excited because it was pretty good work. But it was just […] I don’t know if he would have got as excited if it was a boy, let’s put it that way.

Being patronised could also take the form of well-meant over-concern for the wellbeing of female team members who had met with a slight accident during practical work or, in extreme cases, prevent them from participating fully in practical work in the first instance. Participants gave accounts of this exclusion when their male teammates’ confidence in their own abilities made them ‘a bit controlling’, as one participant put it. At these times it seems that “masculine authority” is brought into play and seems to have been accepted without protest: ‘Or you will be doing something and they will come and say ‘that is not right, let me do it’ and take it off you.’ It seems that, culturally speaking, many of the women were prepared to accept this kind of behaviour as an expected norm in an engineering environment. This dismissive view was expressed by one participant who commented earlier in the interview that ‘if you were the sort of person who was going to be really insulted by that [sexism] you wouldn’t be bothered coming here.’

“Managing the lads”

Although none of the women participants referred to “managing” their male colleagues, descriptions of their actions and responses indicated that this was happening. Having clear aims and determination to succeed made the women feel that they were subtly different from their male colleagues, who they perceived as being less focused. One participant commented that ‘they will do it in the end but just not that well’. This lack of motivation needs to be managed effectively in order for the women’s personal goals of success to be achieved, which sometimes means accommodating the interests and preferences of male teammates, planning or taking on a leadership role even when it has not been formally allocated to them. At these times, having another female teammate is viewed as supportive: it is assumed that this woman too will see the necessity to complete tasks viewed by their male colleagues as “boring”, such as writing up the team report. This approach appears to achieve the desired result of integration and success for women whose personalities accommodate it and who are also culturally prepared to behave in this way. One woman commented of her male teammates that: ‘if you are the sort of girl who just gets on really well with them straightaway, they are straight away glad that they have got you.’ This further demonstrates that women see themselves as responsible for initiating and sustaining team relationships. Two participants who had not grown up with western cultural traditions and for whom English was a second language found it more difficult to gain a sense of secure acceptance within their team. One overseas woman described using a more direct, assertive approach with her male teammates, asking them why she and her female teammate were being excluded and requesting (successfully) that the situation change. The majority of these engineering women were pragmatic about these accommodations, seeing them as a necessary preparation for their future careers in industry where they felt that it was inevitable that they would have to manage behaviour of this kind. They understood that they would be a minority group - as this student put it: ‘At the end of the day you will probably be a couple of girls with all these men anyway so you have got to be able to take it.’

Despite accepting the necessity to adapt their behaviour, some women were also extremely positive about their team relationships with male colleagues: ‘I don’t know if we are really lucky with our teams but we are like best friends with the boys in our group and we are so happy that we got put together.’

Working as part of a team

Retrospective analysis of the questionnaire responses received from two cohorts of students (from which the feedback and free text comments could be extracted) shows women to be generally more positive than men about their experiences of working as part of a team. The small number of female questionnaire respondents in each cohort (11 of 68 in 2009/10 and 10 of 103 of in 2010/11) makes it difficult to assess statistical significance, although the analysis did reveal some indicative trends. Women were more likely to say that they enjoyed being part of a team “very much” or “somewhat”; that they had been able to learn new skills from being part of their team and to agree that being part of a team helped them to feel part of the school. Even when the questions posed were about perceptions of whether or not the groups were encouraged by lecturers to sit and work together or whether the teams met up outside of the university, the women were more likely to answer in the affirmative.

Within the focus group, women spoke appreciatively about other aspects of being part of an Engineering Team, echoing comments from the previous cohort of male and female students. They said that teams represented a way of getting to know others quickly, some of whom they might not have otherwise chosen to speak to. They were appreciative too of the way team working facilitated the sharing of skills and knowledge between team members.

Enhancing the female team experience

The focus group were aware that they had few female role models in terms of staff members but suggested that having female guest lecturers could be inspirational. They also expressed appreciation of informal arrangements made by women in other academic years who had arranged a social event for women across the school at the beginning of semester 1.

Discussion

The majority of the women taking part in the evaluation of this change in pedagogical practice display many of the characteristics of being well prepared, focused, determined and resilient described by Mills et al. (2010) and de Cohen and Deterding (2009). As one focus group participant expressed it: ‘women just don’t casually go into mechanical engineering!’

Women in this small study are also largely in agreement that being a minority (as females working in Engineering Teams) was a positive experience. They talk about their enjoyment of the interaction with their teammates and the possibilities for sharing and collaborative learning opened up by team working. Cronin and Roger (1999), Stonyer (2002) and Mills et al. (2010) conclude that women tend to exhibit a preference for active and collaborative learning rather than for didactic approaches. However, this predilection is not restricted to women. Braxton et al. (2000) found that, for both female and male students, class discussions and higher order thinking activities had a statistically significant influence upon level of integration. Since Engineering Teams require members to engage in discussions, make decisions and solve problems collectively, it is possible that, for those women students who had been successful in negotiating a secure place within their team, this sharing further enhances a sense of belonging, as indicated by extremely positive responses to the questionnaire survey.

As in Stonyer’s study (2002), this group of women have adopted strategies to promote their inclusion within their teams largely without conscious reflection. They have negotiated a place within their team by “proving themselves” to have the necessary knowledge and skills and exhibiting an ability to “take” some degree of teasing and banter. The women see this as inevitable and perhaps even a necessary preparation for the engineering workplace. Mills et al. (2010) see accommodation of this kind as ‘becoming one of the boys’ (p.172) and Stonyer (2002) as being ‘almost guys’ (p.397). The strategy employed by the women which involves them compensating either actively or passively for the preferences of other team members to ensure the team’s (and, by default, their own) success is also recognisable in the work of Stonyer (2002). The women in her study who resort to these strategies are classified as ‘help mates’ (p.397). Disentangling the effects of the engineering learning environment from that of wider culture is problematic as cultural influences are accepted without question and their effects may perhaps best be understood through witnessing the responses of women whose background is outside western traditions or who are conscious of these influences and actively seek to resist them.

Walker (2001) suggests that incorporation of a minority into a dominant culture is always incomplete because such incorporation will not ‘dissolve gendered differences or obliterate male social power’ (p.79) and that women may, in the end, ‘deny difference, assert its irrelevance’ (p.87); themselves reinforcing traditional gender stereotypes. Engineering education’s masculine image is deeply rooted in societal understandings of gendered occupations which remain unchallenged, despite the evidence of women’s involvement and success. This gendered binary allocation of work roles is witnessed throughout society in the attachment of a “gender tag” to a professional identity, even when the tag has long been superseded by the attainment of balance in female/male contribution.

It is evident that this process is still unfolding within Engineering Teams. Both women and men continue to employ traditional cultural strategies with which they are familiar, even when these involve discomfort or frustration. In the focus group interview, participants were anxious to stress their enjoyment of their learning environment even when their practices involved accommodating the wishes of their teammates or taking on additional roles. Sexist behaviour, where it was identified, was seen as being generational; older men (such as workshop supervisors or visiting lecturers) were seen as more likely to exhibit these traits and, because the behaviours were unconscious, they were therefore held to be of little consequence. Both Stonyer (2002) and Henwood (1998) suggest that women engineering students are often hesitant about espousing feminist perspectives and challenging dominant cultures because they assume that they will be perceived as militant and therefore unacceptable to their male colleagues. This may explain why, even when conscious of behaviours or attitudes with which they are uncomfortable, the women participants were dismissive of them.

Henwood (1998) identifies three ways in which women may react to their engineering environment: identification, counter-identification and disidentification. Identification is described as the process of accepting the prevailing discourse, counter-identification occurs when subjects reject the dominant discourse and situate themselves on the periphery of the environment, and disidentification is when subjects actively work against the environment to destabilise and change the way it behaves (p.40). The women in Engineering Teams appear predominantly to identify with the existing environment, with only a minority attempting either counter-identification or disidentification. However, if Engineering Teams are to provide women and men with a collaborative, generative learning environment within the university and influence the expectations they take with them into employment, further refinements to the system are necessary (see Recommendations below).

Recommendations

One way of uncovering the gender dynamics within Engineering Teams which lead to the construction of engineering identities (Walker, 2001; Phipps, 2002) would be to raise the students’ awareness of the subtle gender processes involved during the functioning of the teams. It is proposed that this be brought up during a dedicated session on diversity within the school’s stage 1 Professional skills module. In Australia, Godfrey and King (2011) recommend that all students are educated about the social and political dimensions of engineering workplaces in order to ‘prepare them for graduate work and to improve the culture of the engineering workplaces of the future.’

Amelink and Meszaros (2011) find that facilitation of support networks for women engineering undergraduates is key to increasing their self-confidence. It is therefore proposed to set up a network which facilitates interaction between women across all programmes and years within the school to achieve this goal of peer support and encouragement. Similarly, and in keeping with engineering nationally in that women in the school have few female role models (Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 2009), it is proposed to invite women engineers from local industries with whom the university has links to provide “inspirational” lectures to the whole student cohort. Amelink and Meszaros (2011) and Phipps (2002) suggest that this too raises women’s confidence and sense of ability. It could also serve to demonstrate to the whole cohort of students the importance of women to industry.

Limitations and suggestions for future work

This study is limited by both the small number of participants and its methodological design. The use of a focus group approach possibly restricted the input of less confident women (who may have been hesitant about expressing views when these differed from those of the most vocal group, despite specific questions from the researcher). The less vocal participants included international students and it will be particularly important to invite these women to participate in individual interviews in the future.

Engineering UK (2012, p.159) report that the increase in applications to study mechanical engineering is primarily from international candidates, citing a rise in EU applicants of 141.7% in 2009/10 and non-EU applicants by 130.6% in the same year. By comparison, applicants from the UK rose by 65.9%. The inclusion of men and women from a range of cultures in Engineering Teams will also need to be carefully evaluated to ensure that every student’s learning is most appropriately facilitated.

In order to address the restrictions of this study, the current stage 1 group of women students will be followed longitudinally throughout their university careers, using focus group and also individual interview techniques to facilitate dialogue with those who may be less confident in expressing their views.

Evaluation of the effects of the proposed changes will be continued in tandem with their introduction, offering the opportunity for further modification should this prove necessary.

Conclusion

The findings from this small study are offered as a contribution to the debate on the experiences of women taking part in engineering education. It is hoped that it will be of use to those who are currently reflecting on the climate and culture of a learning environment which may statistically contain more male students or which may reflect the dominant cultural discourse of the “masculinity” of engineering.

Higher education engineering education prepares men and women for employment in industry or other sectors where they may be required to work collaboratively with others. The introduction of Engineering Teams has proved to be a successful initiative in that it has increased students’ sense of satisfaction, their shared learning and the numbers who have been able to continue onto stage 2 of their degree programme (Joyce and Hopkins, 2011). Women in this study exhibit culture and gender specific ways of managing their learning experiences and routes to success and are largely appreciative of their interactions with their teams. The issue of how those women who are not culturally prepared or are unwilling to make these accommodations reveals the importance of not accepting their assent without question. Changes to the Engineering Team system have been suggested for all students in order to heighten their awareness of gender team dynamics. In addition, female role models and additional woman-to-woman support will be incorporated into the curriculum.

Mills et al. (2010) stress the importance of pedagogical approaches for enhancing the experience of women in engineering education and supporting them in the development of comfortable engineering identities. Engineering Teams are an important step in this process.

Appendix 1

Questions and answers from the online questionnaire which were retrospectively gender disaggregated and analysed (selected items)

Appendix 2 Focus group prompts

• When did you decide you wanted to be an engineer? What sparked this interest?

• What has been your experience of having another woman with you in the team? Is it helpful?

• Before you arrived at the university, had you thought about the fact that, as women, you might be in the minority of the students?

• What were your experiences of taking part in induction week activities?

• As women, what have been your experiences of working as part of an Engineering Team?

• Have you encountered any sexism in the school, from staff or students?

• Do you have any suggestions about what would make the experience of being a woman in an Engineering Team/on the course, more enjoyable or more productive?

• Is there anything which I have not asked you about your experience as being a part of a female minority which you feel is important to mention?

Notes

1 The HEFCE/Paul Hamlyn Foundation funded research What works? Student retention and success (2008-11) was a series of projects commissioned across the UK to evaluate the impact of a range of interventions designed to enable students from different target groups to remain in higher education.