Broadening the Appeal of Engineering

Teaching and Learning for the Engineering Profession: a Scottish Experience

Margaret Fraser, Senior Lecturer, School of Engineering, Robert Gordon University

This is a personal commentary based on a career experience of over thirty years in the Electrical Engineering Profession, most of it spent in Scotland. During that time, the observed progress of improved gender balance in both the student and academic communities has not been significant. This paper explores the facts and the possible reasons.

Alison Halstead, Director, Unit for Science and Engineering Education, Coventry University

With the small percentage of women choosing to study engineering at undergraduate level, many initiatives exist to promote engineering careers to girls at school. They often include girls-only events and presentations using female role models to show that you can be feminine and still have an interesting and fulfilling career as an engineer. This session will discuss approaches to recruiting women to study engineering and explore whether recruitment events should be targeted to reflect the style of learning that engineers and in particular female engineers prefer.

Caroline Baillie, Deputy Director, UK Centre for Materials Education, University of Liverpool

The national review of engineering education in Australia in 1995 recommended a major transformation of the curriculum and it was stated that these changes would come from women in engineering. In this paper I summarise the recent developments in research into gender inclusivity, to the present transformationist perspective and look at practical implications for our teaching and assessment of engineering undergraduates in the UK.

Shirley Booth, Centre for Educational Development, Chalmers University of Technology

Sweden has a long history of striving for gender equity in all walks of life. However, the balance of women and men in certain professions and educational programmes remains far from equitable. Policies to redress this, and funds to carry out projects, have been directed at engineering education, with the aim of bringing the proportion of women students up to 25%. This talk will take policies and practice as starting point for a description of gender issues in the Swedish engineering education situation in general, and the example of students of computer science and engineering at Chalmers in particular.

Lesley Davis, Project Director, Balance Project, Loughborough University

Mentoring of 'young women' by 'successful women' is often suggested as a positive step forward in promoting women's careers in engineering and science. With the shortage of female role models and the potential feeling of isolation some women experience in this male dominated environment, this seems a positive way forward and schemes, such as those supported by the Athena Project, have been promoted at many Higher Education Institutions. But what are these schemes aiming to do? Are they aiming to make women more like their male colleagues or support them to change the culture so that they can be themselves and still achieve their potential? This session will explore these issues and consider if this is the best way to support women in engineering including those studying at undergraduate level.