Women Engineering Students’ Self Efficacy Beliefs – The Longitudinal Picture

Many sources and historical data have shown the consistently low representation of women in undergraduate engineering curricula and in the engineering workforce. Specifically, women comprise approximately only 20% of undergraduate engineering school enrollment nationwide and only about 8.5 % of the United State’s engineers 1 . Establishing WIE programs at approximately 50 colleges and universities around the United States has been one response to this situation 2 . WIE programs serve many functions, but their primary responsibilities focus on recruitment of women into engineering undergraduate programs and then retention and development of those same women within their programs of study. Initially, this may sound well defined, but the ways in which WIE programs work to accomplish these outcomes vary tremendously. For WIE programs to be maximally effective, they must have access to validated assessment instruments for measuring the effectiveness of their recruitment and retention activities for WIE studies. Such assessment results can provide the basis for the development and revamping of effective activities designed to meet program objectives and missions.