Examining the Personal Nature of the K-14 Engineering Pipeline for Young Women

This mixed-methods research study examined young women’s perceptions of their K-14 STEM pipeline experiences and their resulting choice to enter and persist in an engineering major. Despite the increasing presence of women in the STEM workforce, they remain underrepresented among engineering majors (Beasley & Fischer, 2012; Heilbronner, 2012; Neihart & Teo, 2013). Outside of the Longitudinal Assessment of Engineering Self-Efficacy (LAESE) survey, few studies exist that utilize a retrospective approach to understanding how young women’s K-14 experiences have influenced their formation of individually held perceptions leading to engineering persistence. This study utilized a mixed-methods approach to obtain quantitative data on the sample population’s prior and current academic data, as well as demographic data. Following the quantitative survey, qualitative methods were utilized to gain a better understanding of how these educational experiences and demographics had influenced the young women’s decisions to enter and remain in the engineering program of study. The following research question was addressed: How do young women’s perceptions of their K-14 STEM experiences influence their decision to enroll and persist in an engineering major? These perceptions were explored through an ethnographic approach focusing on young women in their junior and senior years in an engineering program at a small private liberal arts university. Survey and focus group responses were then analyzed in connection with the young women’s successful enrollment and persistence in engineering programs at the research site. The mixedmethods approach followed a sequential design (Creswell, 2013) and utilized questions in a quantitative Likert-type survey from the Academic Pathways for People Learning Engineering (APPLES) survey (Eris, Chachra, Chen, Sheppard, & Ludlow, 2010) and the Motivated Strategy Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1991). The quantitative study results, which were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), led to the development of open-ended, structured questions for two qualitative focus groups that were conducted in March 2016. Qualitative data were analyzed using line-by-line hand-coding and NVivo software. Anonymity of all participants was maintained.