1. Introduction: Background of Women in the Women's Section of EPD-160

In the Fall of 1996, 195 first-year engineering students enrolled in 14 sections of the freshman engineering design course known as EPD-160. Only 42 of these students (21.5%) were women. In previous semesters, each 15-person section had anywhere from 1-5 women (an average of 3 per section), meaning that women were always in the minority in their sections. Fall of 1996 was the first semester in which women were offered the opportunity to sign up for a special all-women's section which, in addition to allowing women to work as a team on real-life design projects, focused on the special concerns faced by women engineers. The intent of the all-women's section, developed and taught by Dr. Karen Thole, was to boost the confidence, interest, and ultimately the persistence of prospective women engineers by educating them about topics of special concern to women engineers and providing them with important resources and connections to other women in their field. Dr. Thole hoped to establish a supportive all-female environment in which these young women could share their concerns about entering and surviving in a challenging and predominantly-male field. She also hoped to become a resource and role model for her female students and to introduce them to other successful women engineers who could do the same. Dr. Thole was assisted in directing the all-women's section by a female senior assistant with two semesters of previous experience assisting in EPD-160

Although materials given out at SOAR announced that one of Dr. Thole's sections was a special all-women's section, not all of the students who enrolled for the section realized this. (Indeed, half of the initial enrollees were men!) Of the 11 women who eventually wound up in the all-women's section, 4 were not aware that it was a women's section when they enrolled, and only 6 said that the primary reason they enrolled in that section was because of the its focus on women's issues. After shifting some students between her two sections, Dr. Thole wound up with one section comprised of 11 women and one comprised of 13 men. These two sections were combined in one classroom for the initial two lab sessions and for the first few minutes of the remaining sessions; after the second session the two sections worked on separate design projects in separate lab rooms.

Data Collection Methodology: Three methods of data collection were used to understand the experiences of the women in this special section of EPD-160: retrieval of student records from university databases, pre- and post-semester surveys, and pre- and post-semester interviews. Student records allowed us to compare the backgrounds of the women in the women's section with the backgrounds of students in three comparison groups: the men from Dr. Thole's other section, a sample of women from mixed-gender sections, and a sample of men from mixed-gender sections. The pre-and post-semester surveys (one given in the second week of class and one given in the second-to-last week of class) allowed us to compare the four groups on additional background information, interest in engineering, confidence in engineering-related skills, experiences with lectures and working in teams, reasons for enrolling in engineering, and opinions about the challenges they faced as engineering students. (See Appendix B for copies of both surveys.) For purposes of statistical comparison, each of the two male groups were pared down to a sample of 10 (equivalent to the number of women from the all-women's section and the number of women from the mixed-gender sections who responded to our survey). This was done by: (1) dropping non-U.S. citizens from the male groups, (2) dropping males whose test scores and admissions records could not be located, and (3) randomly selecting a comparison group of 10 males from the remaining pool of men from mixed sections.

The bulk of our data regarding women's experiences in EPD-160 comes from the third method of data collection, pre- and post-semester semi-structured interviews (one conducted in the second week of classes and one conducted in the second-to-last week of classes). Nine of the women in the women's section participated in the first round of interviews, and eight participated in the second round of interviews. To expand on what was learned from these interviews, the senior assistant from the women's section and three women from the mixed-gender sections were also interviewed. (See Appendix A for copies of the interview protocols.)

1.1. Demographic background of women in the women's section

The 11 women in the all-women's section were all white middle-class women, and with the exception of one woman from the Chicago suburbs, they all attended high school in small to medium-sized towns in Wisconsin and Minnesota. In these respects, they are typical of the freshman class at the UW-Madison. All of the women were in the upper quarter of their high school graduating class, and all but one were in the upper 5%. The average ACT Composite score for this group was 28.8 (range 25-34), with an average ACT Math score of 28.4 (range 23-32) and an average ACT Science score of 28.8 (range 21-34). On class ranks and most test scores, the women in Dr. Thole's section outperformed the three comparison groups we surveyed--the men in Dr. Thole's section, a sample of women from the mixed sections, and a sample of men from the mixed sections. As a group, the women in the all-women's section had both higher high school ranks (average rank = 95.3%) and higher ACT scores (average composite score = 28.8) than any other group. The only ACT subscore on which these women did not rank first was ACT Math, where their average score was the same as that of the men in Dr. Thole's section (28.4) and slightly lower than that of the men in mixed sections (28.6). In short, the women in the all-women's section were generally strong students coming into the course and in academic terms had performed as well or better than the students in the three comparison groups.

1.2. Most of the women didn't have a clear notion of what engineering really involved.

The majority of the women we interviewed from Dr. Thole's section came into the course with little understanding of what engineering really involved, which was why most of them said they were taking this introductory course. One of the major goals of EPD-160 is to introduce students to the different subfields of engineering as well as to give them experience working with teams doing hands-on, real-world-design projects. Through the group project that every section is assigned, students are given the opportunity to see for themselves "what engineers really do." According to the women we interviewed, this was a much-needed opportunity, since many of them had only a vague notion of what it is like to be an engineer and what sort of work it involves. As a woman who had considered a number of other careers admitted:

R: I don't really know too much about engineering right now, because my parents are both in the English field. Some of my parents' friends are engineers, but I don't really know what they do, or I don't really, like no one I know well is an engineer, so I'm not really sure, you know, what an engineer does exactly. So that's why I took EPD-160--to find out.

Another woman who desired a career in business and who worried that engineering would be too "confusing" and "complicated" for her said the following:

R: I was looking through the orientation book at the different kinds of Engineering and my parents, we like read through the descriptions and we looked at the Industrial Engineering, which is what I was thinking about, and that's sort of like Business, because, I don't know, it just sort of is, and I'm like "OK, well, I'll give it a try." I don't even know if this is a good reason for Engineering, but, I mean…I don't really know what the different majors are. You read the descriptions in the orientation book but, I mean, you really don't know.

1.3. Why engineering: Interests and aspirations of the women in the women's section

Although many of the women in Dr. Thole's section did not have a clear notion of what being an engineer would involve, eight of them were able to articulate their reasons for enrolling in the College of Engineering with reference to their current interests and future aspirations:

1.3.1. A few women emphasized a strong interest in the subject matter of engineering.

Only two of the women we interviewed emphasized wanting to be engineers because of a strong interest in the subject matter of engineering: namely, using math and physics to solve engineering problems or come up with innovative designs. These women both felt that they had a natural aptitude for math and science and were excited by the thought of designing machines or other products.

When one of these women was asked why she was interested in engineering, she expressed her interest in designing machines:

R: Well, I had been up to the Engineering camp and stuff last summer with the Society of Women Engineers, and they showed me a lot of interesting stuff. Also [I'm interested] because I worked at the paper mill this summer, and I saw the big machines and I'm like, "That'd be kind of neat to be the one that designs them, because they're so huge and there's so much to `em!" Because I worked with the electricians, and I kind of thought I'd like to do some of that. But even more than that Mechanical Engineering is what I want to do--just seeing how the big machines work and everything--that was really cool…At first I was thinking of Industrial, but I guess this summer when I saw the machines and how gigantic they are and how much they do and everything, it's neat to see.

The other woman discussed her desire to design toys for a toy company:

R: I was always good at math and science, and [people I asked] said "Well, why don't you go into engineering?" And then I did a job shadowing during high school. I went to WH Brady, a Long Beach corporation, and I saw chemical engineers and mechanical engineers, and I spent like an hour with each of them. It seemed pretty cool, what they were doing and all..But if I had it my way I'd work for the Lego company. I'd like to work with Legos and stuff like that. When I was a kid, I always played with Legos and I do puzzles all the time, like 2000 pieces…The other day on TV there was a commercial for all these different toys and I said to my roommate, "That's what I should do. I should design toys!"

1.3.2. Some women focused on the end goal of an engineering degree: getting a stable, prestigious, high-paying job.

Three of the women we interviewed seemed more focused on the extrinsic rewards of an engineering degree rather than on an intrinsic interest in the subject matter. These women were considering engineering because they knew that engineering is a high-paying, prestigious career, or because it would enable them to get into other desired careers like business or aeronautics. Two of these woman were openly ambivalent about their ability to handle the subject matter of engineering, but because of career aspirations they had decided to "give it a try." One of these women seemed to have entered engineering only at the insistence of relatives. When asked why she was going into the field of engineering she said:

R: Um, I don't know. I guess everybody in my family kept telling me that I should go into it. Because they said I'm really analytical…I initially wanted to do International Business because I could incorporate the Spanish, and I like business-type things, but then I hear you can only go so far with just a degree in Business, you need something else to accompany it. And so I'm like, "OK, well, I don't want to be just like hanging there in the dust." And then, everybody kept telling me that I should do Engineering something or other. And I'm like, "Wait a minute! I'm not that smart, I don't know all this Engineering stuff, this is too confusing and it's too like complicated and everything." But my grandpa, he's sort of an architect, and he's built all the buildings in his town, and so I guess I just really listen to him, because he has like good intuitions or whatever…So I'm in Industrial Engineering because I know I like business things. But I'm still trying to figure out if I like Engineering…I still don't, from what I think Engineering is, it's just not for me, but, I mean if everybody else knows what they're talking about…I should probably try it.

I: How long have people been encouraging you to try Engineering?

R: I would say within the past year, once I decided where I wanted to go. They ask, "What do you want to do?" and I'm always like, "I don't know. Business." That's what I always said. And then they were like " Well you know…you should really do Engineering." [My aunt] is like, "That's really good, there's a real big demand for it, especially for women and blah blah blah."…I don't know. I want to do something International. I want to incorporate that into Engineering. I don't want to be taking apart and building things, because that's not for me, and I don't think that's what Industrial Engineering is. The other woman, who chose engineering for herself even though her parents thought she should go into teaching or law, said the following about the practicality of an engineering career:

R: I talk with my parents, I talk with my teachers in high school, and they all want me to be a teacher. Sometimes I look at engineering and I don't know if I'm going to be able to handle this. You know, it seems really tough, the math and science you get. We argued, my folks and I, for a long time. They're like, "Oh, you should just be a teacher." I said I'd love to be a teacher, but I think that I'd have a better job as an engineer. I don't know if I'd enjoy it as much, but I thought I'd give it a try. I mean, first of all I was going to go to Hayward and go for law. And then a couple of weeks later I was thinking I'm going to play volleyball there and hang around for a year and see what I'm interested in because I'm not sure. And then one day my parents were sitting around talking about engineering, and I said I should really go to Madison--I mean, it's a great school…As far as why engineering, I just thought that engineering was really interesting and I thought that it was a great profession. It pays well, and I heard so many success stories from my parents' friends' children.

1.3.3. Some women saw engineering as an opportunity to solve problems and "make the world a better place."

Two of the women we interviewed were considering engineering for humanitarian reasons--i.e., wanting to help people solve problems and to "make the world a better place." These women both had a variety of other interests (music, art, philosophy, writing, law), and although they had both enjoyed math and science in high school, they sometimes worried that engineering in and of itself would be too "dry" and "one-sided" for them. When these women discussed their ultimate goal as engineers, they emphasized their desires to help other people and to solve social and technological problems. One of these women described her aspirations in the following way:

R: In my career, I want to affect other people. And I don't know if engineering would do that quite as much as something else… I want to, I don't know, it sounds cheesy, but I want to make the world better, and contribute, and not just have a job. I want to help change things. Make things better. But I don't know where I could do that yet, or where I could best do that….And I'm not sure that engineering is the best way that I could do that. But I don't know how else I would.

The other woman reflected similar concerns when she said:

R: I like working with people, and I guess I don't want to just be at a desk and not really be talking to people--I want to be out in the community. So when I was reading about Industrial Engineering, because I didn't really look at engineering until mid semester my senior year, I saw, OK, under industrial engineering is working with community and I guess, well, economics. Now I enjoy economics a lot, and no way would I want to be a chemical engineer, because I don't really enjoy chemistry at all, so, as of right now, that's probably why I'm in Industrial. It works with the community…So I like to be working with people, problem solving, I like bringing in the social work part of it. I always, with my friends, like if they have a problem, I would like sit down and say, "OK, what do we need to do?" I like to help people solve their problems, and an engineer is into solving problems.

1.3.4. At least one woman chose engineering by default.

One woman we interviewed seemed to wind up in engineering by default: Her desire to be an architect had been squelched by her discussion with an embittered female architect, and engineering was the closest career she could come up with. Like many of the women we interviewed, this woman was unsure that she would enjoy engineering enough to stay in it, but she had decided to give it a try for lack of a better alternative. Her ambivalence about engineering is clear in the excerpt below:

I: Why do you think you're interested in engineering?

R: Um, I don't know. I mean, I guess I like math and science. I originally wanted to be an architect but then I visited the University of Minnesota and I talked to this architect lady, and she told me that you really don't make that much money and it's, she just was real pessimistic about it, so it kind of turned me off about it. And so I decided, I mean, engineering is like close to architecture, and I don't know, I like art a lot, and I like math and science, but I really don't know if I want to be an engineer. You know, and I never really have like known for sure, I just kind of said, well, I'll go into pre-engineering just because it's something I have to do, you know, I have to choose something. I mean, I know I have to make a decision sooner or later…And none of my classes now I particularly love, so it's like, I don't know, maybe one of these days I'll get a class that I'll really like. But for now, I'm just kind of doing what they tell me.

1.4. Students' beliefs about differences in men's and women's inherent abilities

Several women came into the course with pre-conceived notions about how men and women differ in their inherent aptitude for engineering-related activities. The majority of the women we interviewed had noticed significant differences in the ways that most men and most women behave, but only three women went so far as to say the perceived gender differences were inherent. By referencing popular media reports about research on hemispheric specialization in the brain, these women were able to ascribe perceived differences in male and female abilities to underlying differences in how the "male brain" and the "female brain" work. Interestingly, one woman focused on studies that led her to conclude that men might make better engineers, while the other women focused on studies that led them to conclude women would make better engineers.

1.4.1. Men have better spatial abilities, while women have better language abilities.

One of the women we interviewed cited media reports claiming that, due to gender-related differences in hemispheric specialization, men have better spatial abilities and women have better language abilities. Because of this, she reasoned, men are probably better at visualizing the solutions to engineering problems, while women are probably better at writing papers and giving presentations. As she explained:

R: Guys, I guess, are naturally better at looking at things or whatever. I mean, for the most part, I guess.

I: Are you saying that you think that's true or are you saying that's what people say?

R: I'm saying that's what studies have shown, you know. More guys--I mean, at least that's what I've heard--more guys can see things more clearly. And girls are more, like can read things and understand them, but guys can visualize them. That's what I've heard, so.

I: Mm hmm. And how do you fit into that? I mean, if you know yourself, what do you think of your own abilities?

R: Um, I don't know, I mean, I've never like taken a test or whatever…I don't know if I necessarily fit into the norm of not being able to visualize stuff, but I don't know how well I can do it. I like to think that I can see things. And I don't know how good I am at understanding literature or like English stuff…But I don't know. I mean, I like English too, so it's hard to say.

1.4.2. Women are better at seeing the "big picture," while men are more "narrow-minded."

Another woman we interviewed focused on later studies to support her own beliefs about which gender would make the better engineers. These later studies suggested not that men use one side of the brain (the "math/spatial" side) and women use the other side of the brain (the "language/emotion" side) but that men are more likely to have strong hemispheric specialization, while women are more likely to use and integrate information from both sides of the brain. With a little help from the popular press, this woman interpreted these studies to mean that women are better at seeing the "big picture" and integrating information from different areas, while men are more "narrow-minded" but also more focused:

R: A lot of guys that I've ran into that are into engineering, they are kind of very math/science focused, and a lot of times, they're not too interested in seeing plays or into music, English, fine arts. I remember I was at a Polygon meeting yesterday, one of the guys said, "Yeah, it's great if you can write for the Wisconsin Magazines, I can't spell or write, or you know!" A lot of times they just are really focused on just what the engineer needs to know--the math/science--and they don't really care too much about finding out maybe about philosophy or eastern religions or these other classes

I: Do you think people have that stereotype of women engineers too?

R: Well, I think women in general can SEE things. The difference between men and women, in general, [is that] women are able to kind of right AND left brain. {Laugh} Kind of see things a little better than men can a lot of times. So I think that that gives us the advantage in engineering, because I think maybe when people think of a stereotypical engineer, they're thinking of the male stereotypical engineer. And that's just the one side of the brain--not seeing the other side of things. But I think because women can, we just sort of naturally can see both sides of things, that helps us in engineering, because we have that advantage: being able to see the whole view, or two sides of things, compared to men.

This belief was also expressed by a woman from the mixed-gender comparison group:

R: There's a definite thought-process difference between men and women, so I mean, that could have [an effect in mixed groups]…Just in the way that we like ARE. I don't know, it's hard to explain…For example, doing the presentation, one guy was like, "Are we doing this just impromptu?" I'm like, {laugh} "No! We want this pointed out, and you're going to have to figure out what you say ahead of time." And there's one excellent example of just like [the women's] idea of making the [golf-ball-throwing] machine [from a pre-made softball throwing machine], because it was already made, I mean, something to go by, and all the things that went along with that. The time factor was what we had in mind. We women were more conscious of that. It seemed like we were thinking of the other factors that we had to work with, and [the men] were kind of just like, you know, more, I hate to say more narrow-minded, because I'm sure they had a different view… But we [women] just came to this one conclusion that [modifying a pre-made machine] is the easiest thing for a group of freshmen engineers that don't know anything…We were all kind of hoping we could build something fresh and new, but we [women] considered just the whole reality of it, and this is what we have to work with.