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Engineering Persistence: Designing and Testing a Communal Strategies Intervention to Increase the Retention of Women in Engineering

Fuesting, Melissa A
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9356-6868
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1556720605030989

Abstract Details

2019, Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, Psychology.
Past work suggests that enhancing early college engineering experiences to highlight how engineering affords communal goals may improve engineering retention, particularly for women. The current work employed a mixed methods approach to investigate the strategies that women in engineering employ to pursue communal goals within their major and the impact of pursuing these communal strategies. Study 1 used qualitative methodology and found that most women who persisted in engineering highly valued communal goals and used multiple strategies to pursue communal goals in their major. The remaining studies used experimental methodology to test whether a brief intervention to increase the use of communal strategies among engineering majors longitudinally increased retention and grades when targeted at a specific institution (Study 2) and immediately increased motivation relative to no treatment when generalized across institutions (Study 3). The targeted intervention elevated women’s major communal affordances in Study 2, but effects did not persist long term or arise in Study 3. Women in the targeted intervention unexpectedly demonstrated less major commitment in the intervention (vs. study skills condition; Study 2). Women in the generalized intervention demonstrated increased career motivation in the intervention (vs. no treatment control and study skills condition; Study 3). Contrary to predictions, when controlling for agentic affordances, communal affordances did not predict major commitment (Studies 2 and 3) or career motivation (meta-analyzed Studies 2 and 3). Implications for goal congruity theory and intervention are discussed. More work is needed to understand the role of communal and agentic goal opportunities for engineering retention.
Amanda Diekman (Advisor)
Heather Claypool (Committee Member)
Jonathan Kunstman (Committee Member)
Nazan Bautista (Committee Member)
91 p.
Social Psychology
STEM; motivation; goals; intervention; goal congruity

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Fuesting, M. A. (2019). Engineering Persistence: Designing and Testing a Communal Strategies Intervention to Increase the Retention of Women in Engineering [Doctoral dissertation, Miami University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1556720605030989

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Fuesting, Melissa. Engineering Persistence: Designing and Testing a Communal Strategies Intervention to Increase the Retention of Women in Engineering . 2019. Miami University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1556720605030989.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Fuesting, Melissa. "Engineering Persistence: Designing and Testing a Communal Strategies Intervention to Increase the Retention of Women in Engineering ." Doctoral dissertation, Miami University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1556720605030989

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

miami1556720605030989
257
© 2019, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Miami University and OhioLINK.