Despite the extensive efforts made, women remain dramatically underrepresented in engineering fields. Over the years, an enormous amount of research attempted to understand the recruitment and retention of women in engineering. Retention issues include the "leak in the pipeline" phenomenon that refers to women leaving either their academic programs or engineering jobs. Self Determination Theory (SDT) demonstrates that autonomy-relatedness and competence are essential psychological aspects that, when met, facilitate learning, motivation, and persistence. This work aims to understand if culture influences female students' levels of autonomy, relatedness, and competence to the extent that could increase the number of women in engineering fields. Several studies have focused on the relationship between culture and education to develop methods to strengthen learners' educational level and motivation. This study presents the comparison of two land-grant institutions offering Engineering degrees. Both institutions are similar in size and academic offering in their Engineering Colleges while keeping different cultures. One institution is located in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, and the other one is a Hispanic Serving Institution in the Caribbean. The differences in culture among institutions were evaluated and compared with the number of female students in engineering majors and their reported autonomy, relatedness, and competence levels. The ultimate goal of this research work is to understand how culture influences the number of females in engineering fields.
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2369-6103
University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus
[biography]
Nolgie Oquendo is a Graduate Student (MS) in the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez. He holds a BS in Industrial Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez. He is seeking to pursue a PhD in Engineering Education. Research interests include Diversity and Inclusion, Design and Evaluation, and Data Analytics.
Dr. Lourdes A. Medina earned her B.S. in Industrial Engineering in 2006 from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude and obtained the highest recognitions in the graduation commencements: Luis Stefani Rafucci Award,
Dr. Velazquez is the Director of Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in the Norm Absjornson College of Engineering at Montana State University. She is also a faculty member at the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department. In her role, she supports underrepresented minority students in STEM fields. Dr. Velazquez has a PhD. in Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University. She is interested in research related to recruitment, retention, and success of minority students in STEM. She is passionate about topics related to increasing the participation of women in Engineering.
David Claudio (he/his/him), PhD, PE, CPIM, is an Associate Professor of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Montana State University. He received his B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus, his M.S. in Industrial and Management Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and his PhD in Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University. He has accumulated over four years of work experience in different manufacturing and service industries. His research interests include Human Factors, Service Systems, Healthcare Engineering, Operations Management, and Decision Making. He is also a strong advocate for diversity and inclusion. Dr. Claudio is currently an active member of the MSU IChange Network Team and the College of Engineering Diversity and Inclusion Committee. He is also the advisor of the IISE student chapter and co-advisor to the SHPE and SACNAS student chapters at MSU.
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4136-9990
University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus
[biography]
Dr. Aidsa I. Santiago-Román is a Professor and Chair in the Engineering Sciences and Materials (CIIM) Department at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus (UPRM). Dr. Santiago earned a BS and MS in Industrial Engineering from UPRM and Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Purdue University. Dr. Santiago has over 20 years of experience in academia and has been successful in obtaining funding and publishing for various research projects. She's also the founder and advisor of the first ASEE student chapter in Puerto Rico.
Her research interests include investigating students' understanding of difficult concepts in engineering sciences, especially for underrepresented populations (Hispanic students). She has studied the effectiveness engineering concept inventories (Statics Concept Inventory - CATS and the Thermal and Transport Concept Inventory - TTCI) for diagnostic assessment and cultural differences among bilingual students. She has also contributed to the training and development of faculty in developing and evaluating various engineering curriculum and courses at UPRM, applying the outcome-based educational framework.
She has also incorporated theories on social cognitive career choices and student attrition mitigation to investigate the effectiveness of institutional interventions in increasing the retention and academic success of talented engineering students from economically disadvantaged families. She's also involved in a project that explores the relationship between the institutional policies at UPRM and faculty and graduate students' motivation to create good relationships between advisors and advisees.
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