Project title: Representation of women engineers and outreach
Project summary:
The 50% for the Future (50%FTF) project at Swansea University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering aims to improve women’s representation and experiences studying and working in Mechanical Engineering. Launched in August 2022, it has worked to address the low female student representation (8.5% in a ~700 student cohort, below the then national average of 11.2%).
Women Mechanical Engineering students reported challenges in the male-dominated environment, including low self-confidence, self-efficacy, and a lack of relatable role models. Consequently, the long-term goal has been to increase women engineers’ representation, whilst in the interim working to improve their current HE-study experience.
Issues for women studying and working in Mechanical Engineering
The project has worked to address three key issues around women becoming a professional Mechanical Engineer:
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Problem 1 (P1) – "The Before": Misconceptions about Mechanical Engineering.
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Problem 2 (P2) – "The Now": The male-dominated higher education environment.
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Problem 3 (P3) – "The Future": The leaky pipeline effect.
Interventions to address the three main problems were developed through data collection, including surveys of students, focus groups with women students, and surveys of schoolchildren and educators.
Focusing on Problem 1, three successful Outreach interventions were developed, and tested forming an impactful “Hybrid Outreach” approach to address the “Knowledge, Awareness, and Role Model Void” women were found to experience around careers in Mechanical Engineering.
The proposed "Hybrid Outreach” approach aims to fill this information gap and provide a clear framework for increasing womens’ recruitment into Mechanical Engineering. With national recruitment of women into most engineering-related degrees low, this “Hybrid Outreach” approach can be applied across all engineering fields in an effort to address Problem 1 and increase women’s intake. Universities can create their own outreach teams, tailoring activities based on their budget and needs. There is also the opportunity to form Regional 50%FTF Networks to run the “Hybrid Outreach” on a more impactful scale.
The full report can be found and read here on the Swansea website.