Skip to main content
Presentation
Emphasizing professional skills and professional values: Investigating the role of faculty's gender and departmental gender diversity
2014 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (2014)
  • Matthew DeMonbrun, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
  • Michael Brown, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
Abstract
Although the number of doctoral degrees awarded to women in engineering has increased substantially over the last half of the 20th century, women are still substantially underrepresented among engineering faculty. Operating from the premise that a ‘cultural mass’ of an identity group might change organizational behavior, we explore the potential influence of gender composition on faculty’s teaching decisions, specifically as they relate to workforce development. Our study utilizes data from a NSF-funded study from a nationally representative sample of 31 institutions representing over 120 programs in seven engineering disciplines. Using institutional level controls, we were able to find several forms of organizational influence that played a significant role in instructional pproaches, specifically gender balance within the organization. We determined that, the greater the gender balance in the organization, the greater the likelihood that a faculty member would make instructional choices that emphasize professional skills and professional values.
Keywords
  • teaching practices,
  • women in engineering,
  • multilevel modeling
Publication Date
2014
Location
Madrid, Spain
DOI
10.1109/FIE.2014.7044119
Comments
© 2014 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.
Citation Information
Matthew DeMonbrun and Michael Brown. "Emphasizing professional skills and professional values: Investigating the role of faculty's gender and departmental gender diversity" 2014 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (2014)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/brown-michael/11/