Engineering Research Paper

Chapter 1

THE PROBLEM AND ITS SCOPE

Rationale

         Engineering is a challenging and rewarding carrier that applies enough knowledge in analysing, planning and can be applied to high supervision of technical and strategic process through studies, experiences and practice.  Through-out the years, gender has become a big hindrance for women to dominate compared to men in terms of these capabilities that this field requires.  Having inequalities in this type of work requires certain time and reasons. The researchers know that gender has been a big issue in everything that we do around us. Separating men to women in terms of ability, capacity and gender has brought a big impact with regards to choosing course specifically engineering courses.

                As technology becomes the driving force of the world’s economic standing, studying and learning Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics or STEM, are the areas that individuals could pursue as today’s workforce focuses more on Engineering and more Engineers are needed to meet the demands of the industry either it can be men or women.                                                                                                                                                

For many years, women’s advocates have challenged stereotypes depicting women as passive, dependent and inferior to men. But efforts to reinforce their challenges with hard evidence have been undercut by serious limitations in available statistics and analysis, including a male bias in the definition and collection of many statistics and indicators & putting this kind of numerical and analytical spotlight on the needs, the efforts and the contributions of women is one of the best ways to speed the process of moving from agenda to policy to practice to a world of peace, equality and sustained development.  United States women are employed in various career areas, ranging from the traditional careers for women, such as education and secretarial, to their growing numbers in business, law, and medicine (U.S. Dept. of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2010) (United Nations (1991).

        According to the National Science Foundation and Engineering Indicators’ 2008 report, it predicts a 26% of opportunities in Science and Engineering between the year 2004 and 2014. This increase is due to new technological demands, as well as retirements of older employee (2008).  However the Engineering profession continues to be a male dominated profession at the present.   Engineering has traditionally been viewed as a masculine occupation. (Women and Engineering Culture, Faulkner, 2000; Frehill, 2004)

        Men and women are classified in terms of gender and characteristics.  Masculine and feminine varies a big difference within these terms of capabilities in doing physical and mental activities in choosing courses that will fit men and women’s capacity of doing work.  Especially jobs that are only for men and women but nowadays women also do the works that are for men.  Hence, there are still jobs and subject matters that women were still not highly recommended specifically engineering courses where men are highly in demand due to its strand of work that needs physical work of supervision.

Theoretical Background

Related Theories

Social learning theory, Albert Bandura (1977) Individuals that are observed are called models. In society, children are surrounded by many influential models, such as parents within the family, characters on children’s TV, friends within their peer group and teachers at school.  These models provide examples of behavior to observe and imitate, e.g., masculine and feminine, pro and anti-social etc.  Children pay attention to some of these people (models) and encode their behavior.  At a later time they may imitate (i.e., copy) the behavior they have observed.  They may do this regardless of whether the behavior is ‘gender appropriate’ or not, but there are a number of processes that make it more likely that a child will reproduce the behavior that its society deems appropriate for its gender This relates to an attachment to specific models that possess qualities seen as rewarding.  Children will have a number of models with whom they identify.  These may be people in their immediate world, such as parents or older siblings, or could be fantasy characters or people in the media.  The motivation to identify with a particular model is that they have a quality which the individual would like to possess.  Unlike Skinner, Bandura (1977) believes that humans are active information processor and think about the relationship between their behavior and its consequences.  Therefore, individuals do not automatically observe the behavior of a model and imitate it.  There is some thought prior to imitation, and this consideration is called meditational processes.  This occurs between observing the behavior (stimulus) and imitating it or not (response).

Sociocultural theory by Lev Vygotsky (1978) grew from the work of seminal psychologist who believed that parents, caregivers, peers, and the culture at large were responsible for developing higher order functions.  Sociocultural theory focuses not only how adults and peers influence individual learning, but also on how cultural beliefs and attitudes impact how instruction and learning take place.  According to Vygotsky, children are born with basic biological constraints on their minds.  Each culture, however, provides what he referred to as 'tools of intellectual adaptation.’  These tools allow children to use their basic mental abilities in a way that is adaptive to the culture in which they live.  For example, while one culture might emphasize memory strategies such as note-taking, other cultures might utilize tools like reminders or rote memorization.  According to Vygotsky, the zone of proximal development "is the distance between the actual development level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem-solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers."

Review of Related Literature

The twenty-first century presents many new challenges in career development and choices in the workforce for men and women.  Currently, women comprise nearly half of the United States labor force.  United States women are employed in various career areas, ranging from the traditional careers for women, such as education and secretarial, to their growing numbers in business, law, and medicine (U.S. Dept. of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2010).  As technology becomes the driving force of the economy, it has become essential that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are areas that more U.S. citizens should pursue.  Although engineering is a very lucrative profession, many Americans, especially women, are not choosing engineering as a profession. Recent studies have shown no significant differences in math and science competency between men and women (Spelke, 2005; Hyde, Lindberg, Linn, Ellis, & Williams, 2008; McQueen, Clark, & Rumsey, 2008).  Therefore other factors, such as social cultural influences seem to affect women’s career choices and preferences.  The purpose of this study is to understand the meaning that women engineers make of the social cultural factors that influence their reasons for entering and remaining in the engineering profession.  Studying the meaning of the sociocultural gender-linked influences on the experiences of women engineers is intended to provide a better understand to educators and employers.  It is hoped that this understanding will enhance the recruitment of more women, by providing insight on how to meet the needs of twenty-first century women who may consider engineering academia and careers. (Women in engineering: A Phenomenological Analysis of Sociocultural Contextual Meaning of Gender Roles, Pamela, 1981)