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Equal But Not Equitable: Self-Reported Data Obscures Gendered Differences in Project Teams
- Source :
- IEEE Transactions on Education. 61:305-311
- Publication Year :
- 2018
- Publisher :
- Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2018.
-
Abstract
- Contribution: This paper argues for a shift in how students’ team project experiences are assessed. Findings from this paper suggest that it is not enough to consider student-reported data in assessing team dynamics; hidden gendered behavior may be impacting students in ways that students do not realize or report. Background: Although the number of women in engineering is rising, difficulties still exist for female students in electrical engineering and computer science, particularly in team projects. Male and female students may have very different project experiences, due to differing levels of confidence/self-efficacy, difficult team dynamics, or inequitable task division. Research Questions: This paper aimed to elucidate what differences exist in the project experience between male and female students, considering self-reported measures (engineering confidence/self-efficacy, time spent on task, and team satisfaction) and observational study. Methodology: Students completed pre/post-project surveys, weekly logs, and post-project interviews to report and discuss their engineering confidence/self-efficacy, project task selection, and team satisfaction. This paper reports a case study of one student team, observed by a researcher throughout the project course. Findings: While student-reported data implied a lack of gender division (male and female students had the same levels of confidence, completed the same project tasks, and were similarly satisfied with their teams), the observational study implied that the student-reported data may not be telling the whole story. Given the difficult team dynamics observed in the student team (but not reported by students), findings suggest that difficult gender dynamics may go unrecognized by students.
- Subjects :
- Self-efficacy
Medical education
Teamwork
media_common.quotation_subject
education
05 social sciences
Self-esteem
050301 education
050109 social psychology
Education
Task (project management)
Dynamics (music)
Engineering education
ComputingMilieux_COMPUTERSANDEDUCATION
Task analysis
0501 psychology and cognitive sciences
Observational study
Electrical and Electronic Engineering
0503 education
media_common
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 15579638 and 00189359
- Volume :
- 61
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- IEEE Transactions on Education
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........d3009b19be4fba8a7f3f556f9b0cd598