Engaging Women Engineering Undergraduates as Peer Facilitators in Participatory Action Research Focus Groups

Abstract

This study is part of a longitudinal research project examining the design of summer bridge and subsequent undergraduate engineering programs at a public university in New England, with the long-term view of how these programs can create more supportive, inclusive environments for women to become engaged as leaders in their educational pathways and future careers. A summer bridge program prepares first-year women engineering students for the academic and cultural opportunities and challenges they may face. Through an immersion in focus groups constructed for participatory action research (PAR), students learn to use their voices for change and also to lead in taking action to improve their experiences in the program. This summer experience is leveraged in the academic year by additional training for a small group of women participants from the summer program to facilitate focus groups open to all undergraduate students in the college of engineering. Using PAR and an asset-based approach emphasizing listening and learning from student voices, this study suggests how engaging women as peer facilitators in PAR focus groups builds leadership and communication skills, as well as increases understanding of student perceptions and experiences in their engineering majors. Further, using the results of a survey administered to all engineering students in their Junior and Senior years on their experiences in their majors, the responses from participants in the summer program are compared with those from students who did not have this opportunity. Women engineering students in the summer program were statistically more likely to see themselves as having stronger critical thinking and communication skills than women who did not participate in this program, but differences between these two groups in perceptions of sense of belonging and leadership skills were not statistically significant.