What Motivates Students to Study Engineering? A Comparative Study between Males and Females in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Motivation to study engineering in undergraduate study is of great importance to students. It encourages undergraduate students to enroll in an engineering program and continue their studies without dropping out. Male students enroll in engineering programs with large numbers compared to female students in many parts of the world. In Saudi Arabia, there were limited engineering programs for female students. In this research, the motivation to study engineering is studied and compared between male and female students in the College of Engineering at Prince Sultan University, the first private university in Saudi Arabia. The study was conducted through a detailed survey distributed to 41 male engineering management students and 45 female architectural engineering students. These students’ performance and experience were considered and compared considering their gender to evaluate their persistence toward engineering study. According to the results obtained, the highest degree of the parents had a considerable effect on the selection of engineering major for male and female students. Most surveyed male and female students select an engineering major because of its positive impact on the community and its role in improving the way of life. Male students may differ in that they considered engineering in order to start their own business after graduation with a higher percentage compared to female students. There was a very limited role of the school in selecting engineering majors according to the surveyed male and female students. This role should be enhanced and utilized to encourage more female students to consider engineering majors in their college study.

Middle School Teachers and Undergraduate Mentors Collaborating for Culturally Relevant STEM Education

“…While Matt showed expertise in creating an interdisciplinary curricular task that included facets of engineering and environmental science, he was less open to Janine's suggestions for students to engage in critiquing discourses of power as part of their project. Connecting engineering to socio-political situations that marginalized students can relate to can open new ways of thinking about engineering and dispel stereotypes about who can participate in engineering (e.g., students of color and females; Labib et al, 2021).…”

“…She advocated for a more inquiry-oriented experience for students than Matt was willing to provide. As the only female undergraduate participating in this study, Janine's social and humanitarian goals for engineering show great potential for motivating female students in STEM fields that have been traditionally dominated by masculine norms (Labib et al, 2021).…”

Seeing With New Eyes: My Professional Development Expedition as an Engineer

“…I was not really sure why I wanted to be a chemical engineer. But I know for sure it is not an influence of my parents such as majority of Saudi Arabian engineering students (Labib et al, 2021). I was also not pursuing chemical engineering because of it is a well-respected and well paid job as believed by most American chemical engineering students (Shallcross, 2002).…”

Lesson learned from the pandemic for learning physics

“…In this changing environment, female college students had been found to outperform male students in a variety of subjects (Alghamdi & Al‐Hattami, 2014; El‐Moussa et al, 2021), an outcome often attributed to their eagerness to solidify their recently acquired status. Nevertheless, attracting females to STEM programs and professions had remained challenging due to persisting gender stereotypes (i.e., remnants of patriarchal traditions and customs; Kayan‐Fadlelmula et al, 2022; Labib et al, 2021; Pilotti, 2021). Consideration of this socio‐cultural context led to the hypothesis that if women perceived the online medium as offering a justification for a return to the constraints of the home and past mobility restrictions, it would likely reinforce gender stereotypes and thus involve performance declines for female students but not for male students.…”