Breaking Barriers and Building Confidence: Unleashing the Power of Digital Tools and Gender-Balanced Teams in Engineering Education

This research-based full paper focuses on building confidence and inclusion for women engineering students by implementing various modes of learning (e.g., an interactive online textbook, Pre-recorded Lecture Videos (PLVs), and equally gendered-ratio teams for in-class team worksheets and course project) into a sophomore-level engineering course. It has been recognized that lack of inclusion has been linked to negative outcomes in student performance, specifically for women. As men dominate most engineering majors, it has been seen that women students find it hard to participate in group work settings. When working in groups, women students have experienced gender biases that were demeaning and often have their ideas or designs second-guessed. These feelings of self-doubt and lack of involvement, repeated over time, led many women students to leave engineering. It is hypothesized that by providing many learning opportunities outside the classroom that positively reinforce their knowledge and understanding and by balancing the gender ratio of teams, women will be more confident in their abilities and feel more included, respectively. Confidence plays a deciding factor in the retention rates of women within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields of study. Anecdotally, it was discovered that during the development and implementation of an interactive online textbook and using PLVs, many women within the introductory Statics and Mechanics of Materials 1 course felt something unfamiliar compared to other STEM courses: confidence. Confidence is a prime indicator of successful completion of a program. To further explore this finding, a study involving focus groups was conducted with three assemblages of women within the course. Two focus groups discussed using the interactive online textbook <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$(n=\mathbf{8}$</tex> and <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$n$</tex> = 9), while one discussed using PLVs <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$(n=\mathbf{8})$</tex>. These focus groups were moderated by two women, a Ph.D. student in Physics and a current Mechanical Engineering undergraduate student. The focus groups were recorded using the University's approved video recording platform (Panopto) and transcribed using NVivo, being corrected and verified by researchers. Various themes were found, with one indicating that women felt more confident about their abilities and knowledge when engaging with the interactive online textbook than when using traditional educational methods. Interestingly, using the textbook and PLVs also helped women feel more confident going into and asking questions in the classroom. Another finding was that the women viewed the equally gendered structuring of groups for in-class team worksheets and projects as a very positive action. The findings of this study set up future work scrutinizing which mechanisms not only promote confidence but a sense of belonging for women within engineering and, hopefully, other fields within STEM.