Contribution: This research examines undergraduate students' perceptions in engineering disciplines toward gender inclusivity in course curricula, focusing on three essential pillars of curricular design: course content, teaching methodology, and course assessment. Background: The shortage of women representation in STEM fields, particularly in…

Growing evidence has underscored the importance of female students' relationships and interactions in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) programs as crucial factors influencing their thriving within these programs. However, the discourse has seen a dearth of literature, especially in low-middle-income countries where…

Transitions between educational levels have been identified as posing potential barriers for students' sense of belonging in science. In this paper, we focus on the transition from lower secondary to upper secondary school while foregrounding physics as a subject. We approach transitions as an ongoing negotiation-process of identities embedded…

According to New Zealand government statistics, there is a consistent male-female divide within technology education in secondary schools, resulting in an ongoing underrepresentation of male students in fashion and textiles and female students in computer science and resistant materials learning areas. This underrepresentation is concerning as it…

Physics is a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics discipline in which women are severely underrepresented. Prior work has identified motivation-based explanations for low participation and retention rates of women in physics. Among various motivational factors, intelligence mindsets (i.e., having fixed or growth mindsets) have been…

Beliefs about relative academic performance may shape college major choice and explain gender gaps in STEM, but little causal evidence exists. To test whether these beliefs are malleable and salient enough to change behavior, I run a randomized experiment with 5,700 undergraduates across seven introductory STEM courses. Providing relative…

Identity matters in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) because it can affect an individual's long-term sense of belonging, which may in turn affect their persistence in STEMM. Early K-12 science classes often teach students about the foundational discoveries of the field, which have been predominately made, or at…

Women remain underrepresented in engineering and broadening participation has recently become the focus of education reform efforts. Increased emphasis on K-12 engineering education calls for the design of learning environments and curricula that increase interest and conceptual understanding of engineering work, beginning in the early years of…

Undergraduates reported the impact of pedagogical practices on their perceived stress. Overall, clustered deadlines, unclear instructions, pop quizzes, high-stakes assignments, and cold calling created the most stress. Policies that allow grade recovery, clear instructions, feeling known by the professor, and flexible deadlines alleviated the most…

This mixed-method study explored female students' sense of belonging while studying in a mechanical engineering program. Mechanical engineering has one of the lowest proportions of women and remains one of the least chosen majors of female engineering students. To start to understand why, it is important to have research focused specifically on…

Gender disparities persist in postsecondary computing fields, despite improvements in postsecondary equity overall and STEM fields as an aggregate. The entrenchment of this issue requires a comprehensive, longitudinal lens. Building on expectancy-value theory, the present study examines the relationships among students' gender-ability stereotypes,…

Men are overrepresented at the highest levels of leadership in nearly every industry, despite studies that report that men are seen as having less effective leadership abilities than women (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017a; Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017b; Catalyst, 2018a; Catalyst, 2019a; Catalyst, 2019b; Taylor et al., 2008; U.S. Department…

Robotics competitions boosts the development of STEM education, but gender disparity in this field remains rarely addressed by researchers. This study focused on the World Robot Olympiad (WRO) and tried to explore the gender differences through investigation method. The research questions are as follows: RQ1, what is the tendency of girls'…

This dissertation explored male students' perspectives on male dominance within career and technical education (CTE) programs and examined how these perspectives impact their educational experiences and career opportunities. The study uncovered a complex interplay of social, cultural, and educational dynamics that influence male students'…

Despite concerted efforts aimed at improving gender diversity in the discipline, the underrepresentation of women continues to persist in the geoscience domain. Research suggests that successful completion of introductory undergraduate STEM coursework is pivotal to the retention of students in STEM major programs and that spatial skills are…