Date of Award

3-27-2019

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Educational Leadership

First Advisor

James Vander Putten

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify the relationships between the positive and negative factors that impact undergraduate female engineering students’ academic success in their programs. While females participate and persist in higher education at higher rates than their male counterparts, engineering is one field of study where gender disparity remains especially apparent, as males continue to outnumber females in engineering degree attainment (Ross, Kena, Rathbun, KewalRamani, Zhang, Kristapovich, & Manning, 2012, Schreuders, Mannon, & Rutherford, 2009, Tsui, 2009). The conceptual framework for this study was based on Tinto’s Longitudinal Model of Institutional Departure, which provides the theoretical foundation for investigating issues of student and faculty engagement and how these impact the academic persistence of students. The positive and negative factors that impact undergraduate female engineering students were investigated by interviewing 14 women who earned their degrees in engineering. Interview data was collected and coded to identify initial codes, then organized into categories and subcategories. Results provided evidence that faculty directly influenced participants’ access to opportunities, and their teaching skills impacted participants’ likelihood to engage with them, but participants did not perceive their professors’ teaching skills to be an important role in students’ engagement with course content. Students’ interactions with peers played an important role in students’ sense of belonging. Additionally, evidence suggests perseverance to degree completion was tied to participants’ personal determination, or grit.

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