Challenge me, disagree with me: Why gendered perceptions to student stories of motivation enhance creative approaches in engineering

Abstract

What if your motivation is characterized in ways that do not align with your vision of yourself? Social psychology and engineering education studies have demonstrated that perceptions are important, and frequent, part of everyday interactions and relatability in the classroom and in the workforce. Expectations matter when engineering students tell stories about a colleague's choice to step away from their CEO/founder position. How might stories featuring negative consequences enhance or interfere with creative approaches in engineering? The purpose of this study is to further extract and investigate the results of work in which participants responded to the role of emotions, expectations, and motivation in the storyline prompt of the engineer/founder who decided to step down as CEO. Two measures are employed: validated coding of the projective storytelling and collected reports of the mood scale (PANAS). Gendered perceptions are examined; men were more negative about themselves and others; and women's stories about women were the only stories with themes of bias, harassment or sexual tension. Do men and women consider it ill-advised for women to discard the power/wealth earned from being innovative? Discussion of a new graduate's entrepreneurial action is crucial for expanding paths from creativity to innovation in engineering education.