Empowering Engineering Female Students to Improve Retention and Progression: A Program Evaluation Study Completed with Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Increasing the retention rate of female students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields has always been challenging in many institutions. Engineering is among the male-dominated fields in both academia and the workplace. In Malaysia, recent statistics indicate that the number of women choosing engineering as a degree is still not encouraging. This paper focuses on the design, implementation, and evaluation of the programs aimed at empowering female students in engineering, where it discusses the methodologies used, the effectiveness of the programs, and the impact on students' perceptions and attitudes toward engineering. Several retention programs that target female engineering students were employed, such as providing a peer-supportive environment, establishing a society of women engineers in university, organizing cooperative events and activities, and exposing them to successful female role models. The effectiveness of the programs was evaluated using a survey administered to female undergraduate students at Taylor’s University, Malaysia as part of a one-year project titled “EWE: Empowering Engineering Female Students to Improve Retention and Progression”, funded by Engineering Information Foundation (EiF). By using thematic coding and statistical tests, the survey aimed to investigate the motives behind female students' decisions to pursue engineering as a degree and assess Self-efficacy and Sustained Interest in Engineering as a result of the empowerment programs. The programs implemented here can be adapted by other universities, especially in Malaysia aiming to provide opportunities and success rates for female engineers.