Gender inclusivity of engineering students' experiences of workplace learning 

Project Member(s): Gardner, A.

Funding or Partner Organisation: Office for Learning & Teaching (Department of Education and Training) (Office of Teaching and Learning Seed Grants)

Start year: 2014

Summary: To the detriment of Australian society and people, women in Australia remain under-represented among engineering students and even more among engineers. Engineering workplaces have features that are gender non-inclusive. Therefore efforts to improve engineering education by increasing industry engagement might further discourage female engineering students. This project would contribute towards ensuring that industry engagement is gender inclusive. Focusing on personal interactions, this project would investigate the workplace experiences of male and female engineering students from three universities, using an online survey and student interviews. The project would use the framework of possible selves, in which students are motivated to achieve or avoid possible future selves (Bennett, forthcoming). A workshop to help prepare students for the workplace would be developed, tested, and modelled.

Publications:

Male, SA, Gardner, A, Figueroa, E & Bennett, D 2018, 'Investigation of students’ experiences of gendered cultures in engineering workplaces', European Journal of Engineering Education, vol. 43, no. 3, pp. 360-377.
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Acknowledgement of Country

UTS acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation, the Bidiagal people and the Gamaygal people, upon whose ancestral lands our university stands. We would also like to pay respect to the Elders both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.