The background and motivation of first year engineering students in relation to gender

Abstract

Each year over 400 students enter the first year of the Engineering Bachelor's Program at KU Leuven, a catholic university in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium. Amongst them, there are only about 14 % female students. The female students do not differ from the male students in background. However, significant differences are noticed in their overall grades in high school, their motivation profiles, self-esteem and total study time. Due to all these observations, it is expected that the average female student would be the better performer in her first year at university. This however, was not observed. Overall there is no significant difference in the average score for all first year courses between female and male students. This paper first describes the materials and methods used to characterize the background and motivation profiles of first year engineering students. Then the results are discussed for the academic years 2009-2010 and 2010-2011. © 2012 American Society for Engineering Education.