Project Lead: Jenna Usprech, Faculty of Applied Science and Faculty of Medicine
Project description
Engineering training popularly focuses on technical skills development, such as problem solving, design, and prototyping. However, engineering practice has been characterized in literature as being far more heterogeneous, with a much larger share of non-technical/social skills ensuring engineering project success. Examples of these social aspects that engineers engage in, at a significant level in practice, include stakeholder engagement, organizational management, and project management. Our project seeks to characterize students’ first engineering work experiences, whether this clashes with their perceived engineering identity and self-efficacy, and what, if any, impact their gender has on these experiences.
Research questions
We plan to use this quantitative and qualitative data to gain insight into (1) student perceptions of their co-op experience, (2) whether the roles assigned during co-op align with previously traditional gender norms, and the effect of such experiences on how women and men perceive engineering identity and self-efficacy.