First Year to Future Career: Women’s Engagement in Technical Participation Is Associated with Long-Term Retention

Societies realize the value of increasing the number of engineering and other STEM graduates, yet universities often struggle to enroll and retain STEM students, particularly women. To remedy this, many engineering programs have shifted their pedagogical approaches to include project-based learning in group settings. However, prior research on engineering teams revealed, for example, gender gaps in active participation, reflecting stereotypes of men as engineering experts and women as supporters. In the current study, we examined the long-term correlates of such gaps. Specifically, in a mixed-method study (behavioral observation, surveys, and longitudinal follow-up) we found gender differences in active technical participation during students' first year in engineering project group presentations, such that men engaged in more active participation than women (<i>N</i> = 589). Longitudinal follow-ups in their final year revealed that first year technical participation was a predictor of feelings of belonging, and these feelings of belonging in turn predict retention in engineering majors and intentions to pursue graduate education in engineering. Together, these results suggest that the first year engineering team experience plays an important role in retaining students and highlight opportunities for early interventions.