Retention of Undergraduate Women in Engineering: Key Factors and Interventions

Abstract

In this paper, we present a concise review regarding factors that impact the retention of undergraduate women in engineering as well as interventions that aim to boost female student academic performance and retention rate. We divide these factors into two types: individual factors, and environmental factors. The former refers to the student’s characteristics. The latter refers to factors that could impact a student via social interaction. The core theories for individual factors include the self-determination theory, the expectancy-value theory, and the self-efficacy theory. An important theory on the environmental factors is the social capital theory. The primary individual factors include self-efficacy (competence belief), sense of belonging (relatedness), sense of autonomy, belief about worth, academic preparation, engineering identity. The primary environmental factors include social capital, family role, friends role, peers role, faculty role, level of advising and support, and stereotypic attribution bias. The various intervention programs that aim to boost student academic performance, retention, and persistency are designed to help strengthen student characteristics and provide a more conducive social environment for the student to excel in engineering. We classify the intervention programs into five categories, including mentoring, co-op, living learning, contextual support, and pedagogy.