Underrepresentation of Females in Engineering Fields
Research has yielded different factors why female students do or do not aspire to engineering
majors. For instance, Faulkner (2006) did a study on gender in engineering and found that females
who choose engineering majors and work as engineers are those who “…are extremely confident,
high achievers, even rebels—the sort to seek out a challenge” (p. 2). Fouad and Singh (2011)
explored why women leave engineering. Their study included women who did not enter
engineering after high school graduation. Female high school graduates perceived engineering
as being inflexible and engineering work environments as being nonsupportive of women and
therefore did not choose engineering as a major after their graduation. Atkins (2013) investigated
the perceptions of successful female engineers in the UK, including an exploration of their ideas
about successful methods for encouraging young women to follow in their footsteps. Participants’
perceptions were that female students are not inclined to choose engineering majors because they
think engineering is (a) dominated by males, (b) involves fixing things, (c) too difficult, and (d)
requires physical strength.