Engineering Design: Examining the Impact of Gender and the Team's Gender Composition

Abstract

This project used Eberhardt's team functions as an observational protocol to examine the team process as it occurred in the Engineering Practices Introductory Course Sequence (EPICS) at the Colorado School of Mines. A design report scoring rubric was used to evaluate the quality of the team‐produced final report. The results of this study suggest that the gender composition of the teams impacted both the interactions that took place during the team process and the quality of the team's final report. Members of majority male teams were more likely to be witnessed clarifying and standard setting during team interactions than were members of majority female teams. During the first course, the final reports that were produced by majority male teams on average were judged to be of higher quality than were those that were produced by majority female teams. The reverse was found to be true in the second course.

Evaluating meeting support tools

“…In some studies, it was assumed that the combination of different skills that males and females bring to the team task results in a higher level of performance. However, a test of this premise has resulted in contradicting outcomes [31][32][33]. As a consequence, the effect of the team's gender composition on our outcomes cannot easily be predicted.…”

“…A first relevant limitation is the gender composition of the teams: almost all teams consisted of males only. Traditionally, engineering has been a majority male field; however, as more and more females enter the field, mixed gender teams are likely to become more common [31]. In some studies, it was assumed that the combination of different skills that males and females bring to the team task results in a higher level of performance.…”

Exploring Connections between Engineering Projects, Student Characteristics, and the Ways Engineering Students Experience Innovation

“…For example, Svihla and colleagues 14 observed that the interaction between authenticity and freedom to negotiate the design project improved innovation-related project outcomes among engineering students. Further, team gender composition has been shown to affect innovative project outcomes 15,22 . Collectively, these and the above results begin to demonstrate some of the ways engineering students may come to understand innovation in more or less comprehensive ways, but further study is need to synthesize such knowledge into a more cohesive and actionable framework.…”

Ecosystems of Entrepreneurship in Canadian Engineering Faculties: A Systematic Map

“…The diversity of the problems we face in engineering education today demand diversified approaches. Great breakthroughs have happened in tackling problems of engineering education when researchers diversified from the traditional research methods (Bjorklund & Colbeck, 2001;Clair & Baker, 2003;Gillet, Nguyen Ngoc, & Rekik, 2005;Haller, Gallagher, Weldon, & Felder, 1999;Kadiyala & Cynes, 2000;Laeser, Moskal, Knecht, & Lasich, 2003;Mayo, 2007;Tonso, 1996). Methodologies should not dictate the research questions, but the opposite is true.…”