Research Initiation: Understanding the Relationships Between Gender, Self-Efficacy, and Extracurricular Activities in the Professional Formation of Engineers

This project aims to expand the knowledge of practices and organizational attributes that could be leveraged to change the ways in which informal education opportunities impact the professional formation of engineers. Extracurricular experiential activities during college are critical in the professional formation of engineers for both the development of engineering students and the preparation of early career engineering professionals.

These informal experiential activities play a significant role in shaping engineering students' self-efficacy, or perceived level of competence, a cognitive determinant that has been linked to learning and performance outcomes for individuals. The goal of this project is to elucidate how composition of activity participants in terms of sex affects the development of self-efficacy in males and females and to identify the activity attributes that can be leveraged to reduce inequalities while improving career outcomes for underrepresented populations.

The study will engage current team members and alumni from two distinct, automotive-based competition teams at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). Both teams have similar performance goals, but the sex composition, attributes, and practices of the teams are very distinct. Understanding how women and other underrepresented populations develop as engineers is essential for building an innovative and inclusive engineering workforce for the 21st century.

The project addresses research questions related to the self-efficacy and professional development of engineering college students, specifically: How do extracurricular activities shape students’ self-efficacy in pursuit of an engineering career? What elements, such as contextual supports, are considered critical for development of undergraduate students’ efficacy?

What are the practices and attributes of each team environment that promotes engineering and career self-efficacy among team members? How do extracurricular team activities and self-efficacy influence students’ assimilation into the engineering workplace? Self-efficacy is an established component in the professional formation of engineers, thus results from the proposed study could help refine gender specific theories about how engineers develop.

A mixed-methods approach, involving current members and alumni from each team, will be employed to address the study goals and research questions that includes the following tasks: (1) Administration of quantitative surveys; (2) Interviews with team leaders; (3) Interviews and focus groups with team members; and (4) Synthesis of the qualitative and quantitative research findings. Our findings will analyze, by sex and age, how self-efficacy develops differently for males and females in informal settings, such as experiential extracurricular activities.

The study will also generate information about how the practices and attributes of groups in informal settings contribute to improved self-efficacy. The findings could be used to make recommendations about best practices that could be leveraged to ensure a broad population in the field of engineering. Ongoing formative assessment will include input from the project’s external advisory board.

Expected outcomes will likely identify attributes and practices associated with extracurricular experiential activities that contribute to improved self-efficacy in engineering disciplines. Findings from the study will also be used to develop interactive workshop activities for K-12 students with a focus on self-efficacy. Project results will be disseminated through project and affiliate web sites, conferences, and publications.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.