Keeping Women Students in Technology: Preliminary Evaluation of an Intervention

Increasingly, companies and corporations are seeking to diversify areas of their workforce that are predominantly male. Many of the positions in these areas are highly technical. However, despite abundant opportunities, women are not preparing themselves for technology-related careers. To develop a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of college student retention : Research, theory & practice Vol. 9; no. 2; pp. 205 - 219
Main Authors Wasburn, Mara H., Miller, Susan G.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.08.2007
Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects
Beliefs
Careers
Children & youth
College students
Computer science
Computers
Control Groups
Councils
Educational research
Engineering
Gender
Mathematics
Minority & ethnic groups
Occupations
Polls & surveys
School Holding Power
Student attitudes
Student retention
Women
Women Scientists
Workforce
New York
United States > US
Pittsburgh Pennsylvania
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Summary:Increasingly, companies and corporations are seeking to diversify areas of their workforce that are predominantly male. Many of the positions in these areas are highly technical. However, despite abundant opportunities, women are not preparing themselves for technology-related careers. To develop a first step toward addressing this problem, a partnership was developed between the College of Technology at Purdue University and John Deere Corporation in 2002. In this article, we will present an overview of the first semester freshman seminar Tech 101 Women in Technology: Exploring the Possibilities, that emerged as a product of this partnership. We will discuss the results of a survey of students' attitudes and beliefs about women in technology-related disciplines, administered before and after each semester of the seminar; compare the preliminary results from those surveys to the same survey administered to a control group; and evaluate the course as a strategy for retaining women students in technology and engineering.
ISSN:1521-0251
1541-4167
DOI:10.2190/CS.9.2.e