FACTORS AFFECTING CLASSROOM INVOLVEMENT OF WOMEN ENGINEERING STUDENTS
Open Access
- Author:
- Persaud, Anita
- Graduate Program:
- Counselor Education
- Degree:
- Doctor of Education
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- April 18, 2003
- Committee Members:
- Daniel W Salter, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
James B Stewart, Committee Member
Catharina Johanna Cunning, Committee Member
Edgar Paul Yoder, Committee Member
Robert B Slaney, Committee Member - Keywords:
- classroom involvement
chilly classroom climate
classroom environment
gender identity
gender interconnection
learning styles - Abstract:
- The “chilly classroom climate” is a term created by Bernice Sandler and Roberta Hall in 1982 to describe the causes and consequences related to lack of confidence, lack of acknowledgment and devaluation of female students. Research implies the chilly classroom climate is especially a problem for female students in engineering. This research project focused on the classroom climate for female engineering students in the hopes to identify strategies to recruit, enroll and retain more women in this field. This study examined the relationships between women’s level of gender identity, learning styles preference, and perceptions of the classroom environment and how these factors affected each other as well as their collective influence on women’s self-reported level of classroom involvement in core engineering courses. Participants were 146 undergraduate female engineering students from the University Park campus, of The Pennsylvania State University. The study included four assessment instruments and one demographic information sheet. The demographic information sheet obtained relevant background information, including race/ethnicity, age, major, class standing, cumulative GPA, and socioeconomic status. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) Form M assessed students’ learning style preference. The Salter Environmental Type Assessment (SETA) Experimental Form B was used to assess students’ perceptions of the classroom environment. The Gender Interconnection Scale (GIS) measured the students’ gender connection to men and women. The Classroom Involvement Survey (CIS) was designed to assess the level of students’ participation in classroom environments focusing on their self-reported behaviors pertaining to involvement. Classroom involvement included aspects of student participation in and out of class. Stepwise regression analysis was used to determine whether the independent variables (learning style, classroom environment and gender connection) explained a statistically significant amount of variance in the dependent variable (students’ level of classroom involvement). The initial, fully saturated regression model was a significant model, which accounted for 48% of the variance in the dependent variable, level of student classroom involvement. However, because all independent variables that were entered into the initial regression equation were not significant, a reduced or more parsimonious model was developed. Three factors were significant variables in explaining variance in the level of classroom involvement. The SETA-TF, GIS Male and SETA-EI dimensions explained 45% of the variance as indicated by the R2 value of .448 and an F-value of 38.40 (p < .001). The regression results were consistent with previous findings that indicate higher SETA-TF values were associated with higher perceived classroom involvement values. The SETA-TF variable explained 40% of the variance in the dependent variable, classroom involvement. In other words, the more “feeling” oriented classrooms resulted in statistically significantly more self-reported student involvement. The GIS variable explained 3.3% of the variance in the dependent variable and was significant at the .007 level. The regression results indicated that higher GIS male interconnection values were associated with higher perceived classroom involvement values. Women who identified more with men had higher classroom involvement values than women who identified more with women. The SETA-EI variable approached statistical significance and explained .3% (p = .051) of the variance in the dependent variable, classroom involvement. The regression results indicate that as SETA–EI values increased, classroom environment values decreased. In other words, students participated more in extraverted classes. Based on the results of this study, strategies for creating warmer, more extraverted and feeling oriented classroom environments that are more open and encouraging to student involvement are discussed. Such environments can make a significant difference in the recruitment, enrollment and retention of engineering students and especially for women engineering students.