An investigation into student participation in extra-curricular activities

This quantitative research is investigating what motivates students to participate in STEM-related extra-curricular activities, how does the level of their motivation change over time, and what barriers are there to participating in extra-curricular activities, including hackathons? The entire undergraduate engineering student population at a large Canadian university were invited to complete an anonymous online survey. This survey asked a comprehensive set of demographics questions, in addition to questions about their participation in extra-curriculars, including questions about why they are participating, why they may have stopped participating, or why they have never participated. More than 700 responses were collected on student participation in extra-curricular activities. Statistical analyses revealed there are differences in how underrepresented communities within engineering participate in technical and non-technical extra-curricular activities. The key findings of this research suggest that gender and sexually diverse populations continue to be underrepresented in STEM environments, especially in engineering student design teams.