Final Report - HELENA (Higher education leading to engineering and scientific careers)
Executive summary:
The present final report forms part of the overall effort to explore the influence of the perception of science on higher education study choice across European countries.
Women's participation in engineering occupations appears to be a key-issue for European economic and technical development, as well as a central achievement towards gender equality and social justice. A look at the recent statistics could give a euphemised impression: female's share of 40 % in the PhDfields of science, mathematics and computing seems to be relatively gender-balanced. Broadly speaking, women tend to choose humanities, education, arts, health, welfare, agriculture or veterinary studies, while men give preference to science, mathematics and computing.
Therefore, investigating gendered-based preferences and choice of study field by male and female students is of paramount importance. The aim of the project HELENA is to collect and analyse literature and data from traditional and pilot curricula, confirmed by the European higher education E&T, with the purpose to question or to confirm the above-mentioned statements and, consequently, to provide indications how to launch analogical projects and to monitor the obtained results.
The HELENA project brings together a focused and balanced partnership of organisations which share a top level commitment to the collaborative transnational research of higher education leading to engineering and scientific careers of women as well as to the improvement of career progression of women in the labour market. For the attainment of the aim, the following project objectives were set:
1.To identify and analyse relevant interdisciplinary E&T degree courses in different European countries.
2. To analyse the students' perception of these interdisciplinary and traditional E&T degree courses.
3. To evaluate the effectiveness of the existing pilot projects, developing and measuring indicators on the relationship between perception and study choice.
4. To share good practice obtained in different facets of the project and, on the basis of that, to produce recommendations for the reorganisation of university curricula at European level (Bologna process).
5. To disseminate the project results through monitoring indicators.
The state of the art overview and scoping study collated the National data for the last ten years, important figures concerning engineering education, key sources of data, including statistical indicators, literature, statistical sources and existing research and studies' statistics addressing curriculum issues in engineering higher education in the European Union (EU) and in each consortia country: Austria, France, Lithuania, Serbia, Spain and United Kingdom.
Implementing the first three objectives of the project as regards the first project objectives, HELENA research sample aimed at the engineering degree courses, on bachelor or master level. The focus was on the comparison of the traditional degree courses and the innovative degree courses. Innovative implied interdisciplinary degree courses where 25 % or more of the total number of ECTS were in non-engineering disciplines. Within the same discipline, innovative and traditional degree courses were compared. All researched parameters appeared to be equal, except the proportion of non-engineering ones.
The research was continued by interviewing students on their perception of traditional and innovative degree courses. It can be stated that quite many of the interviewed E&T students were in favour of interdisciplinary courses, although ubiquitously they experienced difficulties in naming them exactly as interdisciplinary ones. After the research was conducted, HELENA project set of recommendations addressed to policy makers and educational actors that could enable the HEIs to evaluate the effectiveness of their educational policies and study programmes in attracting more female students to engineering disciplines.
Project context and objectives:
Investigating gender-based preferences and the choice of study field by male and female students at the European Higher Education engineering studies, the following objectives for the final reporting period (Month 30) of this project have been set:
-To identify and analyse relevant interdisciplinary E&T degree courses in different European countries.
-To analyse the student's perception of the interdisciplinary and traditional E&T degree courses.
-To evaluate the effectiveness of the existing pilot projects, developing and measuring indicators on the relationship between perception and study choice.
-To share good practice identified through this experience, producing recommendations on the reorganisation of university curricula at European level (Bologna process).
Work progress and achievements during the period
Five objectives of the project in the final reporting period (Month 30) according to annex I of the grant agreement have been implemented:
-relevant interdisciplinary E&T degree courses in different European countries have been identified and analysed;
-students' perception of the interdisciplinary and traditional E&T degree courses has been analysed;
-the effectiveness of the existing pilot projects, developing and measuring indicators on the relationship between perception and study choice has been assessed;
-to share good practice identified through this experience, producing recommendations on the reorganisation of university curricula at European level (Bologna process).
Before this project the engineering curriculum research in the EU was analysed. The main findings for the last 15 years are presented below:
Universities were exploring the ways of revising the engineering curriculum in order to meet the changing needs of industry and society. Any restructuring of an engineering curriculum had to take into account the correlation between society, engineering competencies and the changing paradigm of engineering education. Decreasing student enrolment figures in engineering in many countries call for appropriate measures to be implemented including the development of attractive programmes of study and challenging learning environments.
Over the last decade there have been many initiatives in EU and other countries to encourage female to become engineers. Reviewed literature has shown that female have more negative attitudes towards engineering and technology than male do. Despite greater equality in access to higher education and employment of women's participation in engineering careers does not reflect this. Higher education engineering curriculum is male based. In construction of engineering curriculum three aspects have been neglected: 1) students' background in the light of formal and informal experience and interests, 2) students / student interactions, 3) teacher / student interaction. Innovation of the curriculum with regards to gender mainstreaming means broadly oriented integrated and content rich teaching material, diversity in teaching and learning methods.
As an academic discipline, engineering is continuously undergoing a process of rapid expansion and diversification that is now significantly characterised by interdisciplinary approaches. There is a rise of interest in increasing interdisciplinary studies. As a profession, engineering has to deal with scientific and technological matters, but increasingly economic, political, ethical, societal and environmental aspects are taken into account as well.
Introducing social science and other disciplines into engineering could, ideally, help to bridge the gap that exists between producers and consumers of technology. Social sciences, humanities, cultural and management studies are also as important as the traditional applied sciences for the portfolio of engineering competencies because students need to understand the financial, business, environmental, economic and social constraints in which engineers operate. Most of the studies and projects showed that interdisciplinary curriculum is one of the central elements for fighting against gender and engineering stereotypes.
Reviewing literature of engineering education and curriculum, learning and teaching methods we identified that many studies have been presented in the last decade. Past studies have shown that a change in learning environments and the methods according to which learning takes place might increase the number of female choosing engineering careers. Supported by the experience of the United Kingdom, Scandinavia and other EU countries, higher technical educational institutions are introducing new forms of education, such as problem-based and project based education, which increases the appeal of technical education and has a positive effect on the intake, retention and output of students. Surveys and reports undertaken to document and evaluate active teaching and learning methods indicate that project and problem-based learning can satisfy the demands for required knowledge, skills and attitudes of engineering graduates. But active and experiential learning is not limited only to project orientation and problem-based learning. It should also employ ICT environments, various extra curricula activities and more traditional forms like labs, exercises and design activities.
However, changing teaching methods and didactical design of engineering courses are steps in the right direction but not sufficient for making education gender inclusive. Changes must be made also in the content, followed by redesign of existing and design of new courses. Broadening and the repositioning of the curriculum is the challenge facing technical education for the next few years. Reviewing the curriculum research findings in E&T area HELENA project partners from 6 countries - Austria, France, Spain, Serbia, Lithuania and the United Kingdom from the states of the art reviewing of curriculum research in E&T in Higher Education are as follows:
-Description of pre-existing conditions (Bologna reform impacts: standardised degree levels across Europe, more transferable and standardised; course content proscription by the professional bodies that accredit courses).
-Interdisciplinary approach to E&T courses: The interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, or holistic approaches in engineering courses are a positive step and curriculum transformations and research is moving towards innovations. Engineering Education is adopting multi-disciplinary approaches and more innovative teaching and learning methods are applied, but these are mostly developed without gender-mainstreaming in mind.
-Curriculum content in E&T with focus on gender: Rapid content development asks for new teaching techniques, and this in turn requires knowledge from non-engineering disciplines, engineering programmes may become more attractive for female students. The need to make the engineering curricula more socially relevant is universally recognised.
-Teaching techniques and demanded skill system: Alongside the developments in course content teaching environment and assessment innovations are in use. A focus on skills may be interpreted as representing a broadening of the remit of university education and at the same time a broadening of the term skill to include aspects of knowledge and theory.
-Projects leading to curricula innovations: Projects are an approach to non-traditional educational schemes for engineering students and teachers. As study programmes are mostly bound with output standards that make adding optional, interdisciplinary modules to existing programmes difficult, the gender-inclusive teaching and learning methods are successfully implemented through project work.
-Market requirements and employers' needs, marketing of E&T courses: Innovations are mostly focused on making engineering more relevant to industry and to students themselves. Scientists as well as employers emphasise that there is a demand for engineers who can work 'outside the boundaries of their own disciplines'. Engineering curriculum development and research are not usually framed within gender mainstreaming debates and rather focus upon economic and technological imperatives. As the main task is to make up curriculum to fit labour market needs, gender is just not the most important in developments in engineering curriculum during a period of widespread innovation and progress, which in itself offers a good opportunity to embed gender inclusive measures.
-The research on traditional and non-traditional engineering study programmes, good practice in engineering education. Only some studies have taken a gendered view of engineering curriculum developments, others have not addressed this issue at all. Generally, the developments of engineering study programmes are under investigation but not in a gender dimension. The reasons for this are not clear. It may well be that the best way to develop engineering curriculum in a more inclusive vain is by the 'backdoor', as more overt attempts to address women's position in the technical and scientific fields may be viewed as counterproductive.
Describing the establishment and development of engineering education in 6 countries, information on the 'standard' engineering education organisation (engineering fields, number of hours allocated to disciplines in different curricula, students' recruitment means, information on student withdrawal from the course, organisation of exams, training periods, relationship with the industry, women-only E&T degree courses existing, Bologna process implementation, etc.) in each country, the innovativeness of degree courses were characterised. The degree of interdisciplinary subjects as far as the content was concerned and the amount of modern didactics (team-teaching, project work, group works, problem-based learning) were taken into account. The explicit criteria in order to identify the pilot innovative E&T courses, leading more women to engineering studies and the overall methodology of research has been carried out.
The project research methodology reflects different levels of data collection: quantitative data collected by WP4 about percentage and types of ECTS in engineering degree courses, with corresponding proportion of women students; qualitative research work on the experience of students studying in engineering degree courses: interviews including biographical data with short questionnaires (WP5); document analysis (WP4, WP5, WP6).
HELENA research sample was focused on the engineering degree courses, at bachelor or master level. The focus was comparing 'traditional' degree courses and 'innovative' degree courses. 'Innovative' is defined as interdisciplinary degree courses where 25 % or more of the total number of ECTS are in non-engineering disciplines. In the same discipline (electrical engineering, ICT, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, etc.), 'innovative' and 'traditional' degree courses were compared, all parameters turned out to be equal except the proportion of non-engineering ECTS.
In each country, 2 disciplines were identified. The identification of disciplines was made according to the existing classifications in each country.
For quantitative data, data was collected on at least 30 % of the existing degree courses of each country. For qualitative data, in each country at least 2 case studies per discipline were chosen: a traditional one and an innovative one. The total number of case studies was at least 4 in each country.
186 study programmes were analysed: 31 interdisciplinary and 155 'traditional' study programmes. Empirical data showed to which extent interdisciplinary programmes are being implemented in different countries: from 0 % (UK, Serbia, and Austria) up to more than 40 %: 41 % (Lithuania, Engineering of storage and proceeding of agricultural products); 43 % (Austria, Information Management); 48 % (Spain, Degree engineering management).
The first hypothesis is based on the statement that engineering study programmes with more than 25 % non-engineering subjects are more attractive to women than traditional engineering study programmes supported by the results of research in Austria, Lithuania and Spain.
The second hypothesis is based on the claim that women who study in interdisciplinary engineering study programmes have a higher success rate than women in traditional engineering study programmes supported by the results of research in Lithuania and Spain.
Both hypotheses were supported by the following results: interdisciplinary, i.e. more innovative study programmes have about 10 % more women than the average of all analysed study programmes. Engineering study programmes with more than 25 % of non-engineering subjects are more attractive to women than traditional engineering study programmes and women have a higher success rate in these programmes.
Research methodology provided three main steps for the analysis of the students' perception of both interdisciplinary and traditional E&T degree courses: female and male students' perception and their retrospective facilitated the identification of reasons for study choice (or non-choice) of E&T and were qualitatively analysed. Students' perception and reasons for study choice (or non-choice) of E&T were analysed within the background of the E&T education and the cultural context of E&T in the particular countries. Students of interdisciplinary and other traditional E&T degree courses were interviewed, in order to distinguish between the effect of the societal content and other influential variables of this pilot project of degree courses.
Through the state of the art we explored the existing data both qualitatively and quantitatively. The interactive mixed methodology was extremely useful when interpreting and analysing the new data from the fieldwork. Taking different cultural backgrounds into consideration, a specific process for designing research, reporting, analysing and interpreting data was worked out: guidelines were collaboratively designed in the English language. They were translated into national languages according to a clear procedure (translation guidebook).
The interview questionnaire with the 2 additional questions, taking the national contexts into account, was constructed and case study methodology provided. Case studies imply interviews with female and male students of traditional and interdisciplinary study programmes and triangulation of interviews (interpretation of country specific results within the consortium). 158 interviews in seven countries were conducted: Austria, France, Lithuania, Macedonia, Serbia, Spain, United Kingdom (72 interviews with students from traditional and 86 from innovative (interdisciplinary) case studies and 77 interviews with female students and 81 with male students) were carried out.
Countries summarised the results of qualitative work according to the specific methodology, question by question, for each question applying research instruments and adding some comments to explain the specific cultural settings or proposing their own interpretation. The summaries were performed in the English language.
For the evaluation of the effectiveness of the existing (interdisciplinary) pilot projects, developing and measuring indicators on the relationship between perception and study choice were set: the number of students in the first year of studies, disaggregated by sex in each study programme; total number of students enrolled, disaggregated by sex; total number of graduates, disaggregated by sex; the percentage and absolute numbers for the student population in each study program; the number of innovative study programmes containing more than 25 % of interdisciplinary subjects in the study programme.
The HELENA project set of recommendations addressed to policy makers and educational actors that enabled the HEIs to evaluate the effectiveness of their educational policies and study programmes in attracting more female students to engineering disciplines. HELENA project addressed the under-representation of women studying for engineering and technical degrees and explored the attractiveness of innovative study programmes with the aim of contributing to a more equal participation in higher education. The HELENA project recommendations could be used and integrated within new policies to improve gender equality in European higher education. Different key groups could benefit from them: policy-makers and educational actors related with E&T education at European and national level, and in particular for HEIs, to enable them to evaluate the effectiveness of their educational policies and study programmes in attracting more female students to engineering disciplines. This approach allowed every group to make suitable decisions about their strategy for gender mainstreaming and educational management and policy.
Project disseminated research results through monitoring indicators and indicated collaborative project results and their potential impact and use:
1) Two hypotheses were proved: (a) interdisciplinary study programmes with more than 25 % of non-engineering subjects have more female students and(b) interdisciplinary study programmes with more than 25 % of non-engineering subjects have more female graduates.
2) Key competencies and resources of consortium partners from different backgrounds, research cultures and experiences were cooperated.
3) Engineering education can benefit from the richness and various perspectives and expertise which individuals from different ethnicity, culture possess.
4) Research results support the idea of reform of higher education in the enablement of generally transferable abilities and skills.
5) Mutual learning amongst the partners works in favour of cross-cultural research and collaboration.
Project results:
As leader of WP1 Siauliai University investigated gender-based preferences and the choice of study field by male and female students at the European higher education engineering studies. The following objectives for the final reporting period (month 30) of this project have been set:
- to identify and analyse relevant interdisciplinary E&T degree courses in different European countries;
-to analyse the student's perception of the interdisciplinary and traditional E&T degree courses;
-to evaluate the effectiveness of the existing pilot projects, developing and measuring indicators on the relationship between perception and study choice;
-to share good practice identified through this experience, producing recommendations on the reorganisation of university curricula at European level (Bologna process).
Five objectives of the project in the final reporting period (Month 30) according to annex I of the grant agreement have been implemented:
-relevant interdisciplinary E&T degree courses in different European countries have been identified and analysed;
-students' perception of the interdisciplinary and traditional E&T degree courses has been analysed;
-the effectiveness of the existing pilot projects, developing and measuring indicators on the relationship between perception and study choice has been assessed;
-to share good practice identified through this experience, producing recommendations on the reorganisation of university curricula at European level (Bologna process).
As the leader of WP2 Loughborough University (LoU) liaised with all partners during 2009 to successfully schedule and coordinate tasks (T2.1 T2.2 T2.3 and T2.4) and deliverables related (D2.1 D2.2 D2.3 and D2.4) in order to meet the requirements set out in Annex I (as summarised above). The description of the results shows the performance of the specific tasks and is set out below.
T2.1: State-of-the-art review overview
Key sources of national data and existing research on engineering education were identified in D2.1 in line with T2.1.1 (annex I). Further information was collected to complete T2.1.2. This information required that partner countries identified their research population, definitions (of innovative / traditional courses), recognised the limits of the study and hypotheses (e.g. subfields of engineering) and areas of validation (e.g. potential case studies). This information was collected and organised by each partner as stipulated on p.16 annex 1. Further information is available in D2.1 produced by ENSC and LoU.
Austria (UNI-KLU) provided statistical information from StatistischesTaschenbuch regarding the number of male and female students undertaking engineering courses in HE across Austria between 1998 and 2008. These statistics reveal that historically no more than 33% of engineering students are female, yet the rates of participation of female have increased from 11% as regards some indicators from 1998. Previous research identified how cultural stereotypes undermine female participation in engineering and that interdisciplinary courses might be productive to encourage gender balance. In response to T2.1.2 UNI-KLU indicated that 40 engineering courses exist in Austria, covering civil engineering, architecture, regional planning, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, applied natural sciences, applied natural sciences short cycle courses. Austria defines an innovative course as one that has an interdisciplinary content and uses modern didactics (e.g. group work, coursework). Two potential case studies were identified in Germany and Austria that demonstrated innovative measures.
The United Kingdom (LoU) provided statistical information from HESA (Higher Education Statistics Agency) regarding the number of male and female students undertaking engineering courses in HE across the UK in 2007 / 8 in line with T2.1.1. These figures reveal that less than 20% of students on engineering courses in the UK are female. In response toT2.1.2 LoU indicated that 200 engineering departments exist in the UK each offering degree courses, covering a wide range of engineering disciplines including civil, mechanical, electrical, maritime, chemical, general, and biotechnological and production. The UK (LoU) most closely identifies interdisciplinary work and modern didactics, including industrial placements as innovative. Four potential case studies were identified that attempt to widen participation in engineering through innovative techniques.
In line with T2.1.1 France (ENSC) provided statistical information from Ministère de l'ÉducationetMinistère la recherché of the number of male and female students undertaking engineering courses in HE across France in 2008. These figures reveal that around 25% of students on engineering courses in France are female; this has increased from around 13% in the mid-1980. Previous research on gender and engineering education in France reveals how cultural stereotypes, expectations and meanings influence the gendering of engineering education. In response to T2.1.2 ENSC indicated that there are 220 institutions delivering engineering degree courses, covering inter alia manufacturing engineering, medical engineering and industrial engineering. ENSC most closely identifies with innovative courses that are interdisciplinary; five potential case studies were identified along these lines.
As regards T2.1.1 Lithuania (SU) provided statistical information from AIKOS about the number of male and female students undertaking science and engineering courses in HE across Lithuania between 2001 and 2007. These figures show that 12% of students taking engineering and science courses in Lithuania are female; this figure has increased around 10% in 2000. Previous research showed that educational and professional institutions did not empower and encourage women to view science and technology studies in positive terms, as compared to male. In response to T2.1.2. SU indicated that there are around 50 institutions providing science and technology courses, the main areas of study include biotechnology, medical engineering, information technology and electronics. SU identifies modern didactics and interdisciplinary content as innovative and, thus, suggested nine potential case studies of courses along these terms in Lithuania and potentially two in Russia (in the Russian language).
As per T2.1.1 Serbia (PUPIN) indicated that statistical information was available from the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia to indicate the number of male and female students taking engineering courses in Serbia between 1998 and 2008. In 2007 / 08 36 % of students taking science and technology subjects were female. Previous research on gender and engineering education in Serbia researched the questions regarding the lack of power of women in decision making in different institutions and the effect of women's social role (e.g. in terms of the family) on their education opportunities. In response to T2.1.2. PUPIN indicated that there were four institutions in Serbia offering engineering courses. These institutions offer courses in: electrical engineering, computer science, mechanics, civil engineering, traffic engineering, architecture, industrial engineering, environmental engineering, technology and metallurgy, mine and geology, mechatronics and others. PUPIN identifies innovative programmes as interdisciplinary with modern didactics; two case studies were identified along these lines, one in Serbia and one in Slovenia.
In line with T2.1.1 Spain (TECNALIA) provided statistical information from Eurostat to indicate the number of male and female students taking engineering courses in Serbia between 1998 and 2007. 28.1% of female engineering students in Spain in 2007 were women. Previous research on gender and engineering education in Spain identified the importance of viewing gender as a social construction of cultural meanings and stereotypes, which influences decision-making and expectations about male and female careers and education, causing some discrimination against women in perceptions of engineering. In response to T2.1.2 TECNALIA indicated that there were 71 institutions offering science and engineering courses in Spain, including civil, geological, mining, industrial and maritime engineering. TECNALIA identified interdisciplinary content and modern didactics as their definition of an innovative course; five potential case studies were identified.
T2.2: State-of-the-art review of career choice and gender in engineering
Results for T2.2 were reported in D2.2 produced by LoU. These results were based upon information provided by each partner country. T2.2.1 required the identification of existing research and the impact of gender on career choice. The choice of what subject to study is still deeply gendered across the HELENA partner countries, as demonstrated by the statistical indicators on students in higher education (as summarised by the results to T2.1). The decision to study engineering is influenced by interests and abilities, knowledge of the subject and 'contact' with engineering. Science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects at school level are crucial in terms of access to engineering higher education, in terms of child's ability, success, as well as confidence and self-efficacy. Key factors that impact on the decision to study engineering are as follows:
-direct contact with engineering - via family members;
-background and socialisation - middle-upper class, supportive parents;
-personality - self-image and gender identity, motivations, 'act of rebellion'.
It has also been established in extant research that perceptions about engineering can have an impact on whether a young adult will decide to study engineering once they have achieved success at school level. Once the decision to study engineering has been made, series of factors can influence the subsequent decision to pursue a career in engineering. The research has explored the academic culture dominant in engineering departments and higher education institutions and has identified that the masculinity of culture in higher education reflects the culture found in industry. Sometimes there is a denial of any problem with regards to women's interaction with the masculine culture, but there is also curriculum development and the desire to innovate engineering curriculum along the lines of interdisciplinary content and innovative teaching methods. The research that has looked at the role of industrial placements and professional engineering identity in the decision to pursue a career in engineering and analysed how women, in particular, experience these changes, has found that industrial placements serve as an important socialisation tool in terms of professional identity. In these contexts women learn to manage their gender problems and adopt 'coping strategies'.
T2.2.2 required an exploration of whether women were more likely to study engineering than men. This task required the partners to examine the datasets initially identified in T2.1. These datasets reveal that although in most countries women now make up over half of the higher education student population they make up a much smaller proportion in science, engineering and technology disciplines; ranging from a low of 18% of students in the United Kingdom, to a high of 35% in Serbia. In summary, from the analysis we may state that:
-Women, as a percentage of engineering students, have steadily increased their participation over the last four decades - the latest figures from partner countries demonstrate that women's participation rates in engineering higher education vary from 18-35%.
-Women's dropout rates are lower than average in engineering education and success rates are higher.
-Feminine disciplines in engineering - architecture, chemical engineering.
-Women are consistently under-represented in mechanical engineering and electrical and electronic engineering.
-Gender differentiation by discipline remains despite women's access to higher education.
-Taking into consideration women's increase in the access to higher education we can see that women's interest in taking up engineering at university has not increased over the last four decades. The percentage of women students in higher education who choose engineering ranges from 15% in Serbia to 2% in the UK.
Overall, the results of T2.2.2 indicate that women are still significantly less likely to study engineering than men across the HELENA partner countries.
T2.3: State-of-the-art review of curriculum research in engineering HE
T2.3.1 required the identification of existing research addressing the impact of curriculum content in engineering HE. Significant results from this research will be addressed here; further information and results are available in D2.3 produced by SU.
Universities across the HELENA partner countries were exploring ways of revising the engineering curriculum in order to meet the changing needs of industry and society. Any restructuring of an engineering curriculum must take into account the correlation between society, engineering competencies and the changing paradigm of engineering education. The 'employability' of graduates depends on a combination of high technical knowledge, practical experience and soft skills. Decreasing student enrolment figures in engineering in many countries call for appropriate measures to be implemented including the development of attractive programmes of studies and challenging learning environments.
Over the last decade there have been many initiatives in EU and other countries to encourage female to become engineers. The reviewed literature has shown that female have more negative attitudes toward engineering and technology than do male. Despite greater equality in the access to higher education and women's employment, participation in engineering careers does not reflect this. Higher education engineering curriculum is male based. While designing engineering curricula three aspects have been neglected:
1) students' background in the light of formal and informal experience and interests;
2) student / student interactions;
3) teacher / student interaction.
Innovation of the curriculum as regards gender mainstreaming means broadly oriented, integrated and content rich teaching material, diversity in teaching and learning methods.
T2.3.2 required an examination of if and why engineering curricula are changing and developing to adopt a more interdisciplinary approach. It is apparent that in most partner countries more interdisciplinary approaches to engineering education were being implemented. There are various reasons for this change. As an academic discipline, engineering is continuously undergoing a process of rapid expansion and diversification that is now significantly impacted by interdisciplinary approaches. There is an upsurge in the interest in interdisciplinary studies. As a profession, engineering has to deal with scientific and technological matters, but increasingly economic, political, ethical, societal and environmental aspects are taken into account as well.
Society places many demands on an engineer: to be humanistic technicians, be adept in interdisciplinary skills that include both technical and non-technical competencies that enable them to critically analyse, solve problems, communicate effectively, and be able to learn continuously as the workplace changes. Introducing social science and other disciplines into engineering could ideally help to bridge the gap that exists between producers and consumers of technology. Social sciences, humanities, cultural and management studies are as important as the traditional applied sciences for the portfolio of engineering competencies because students need to understand the financial, business, environmental, economic and social constraints in which engineers operate. That is why engineering education in the HELENA partner countries was adopting a more multi-disciplinary approach, innovative teaching and learning methods. These changes were mainly implemented without taking gender-mainstreaming into account. It was evident that further research was needed to perceive how new, innovative teaching techniques and practices, and curriculum development impact on students and whether there were societal and gender differences concerning these initiatives.
T2.4: Start-of-the-art review of documentary analysis of higher education engineering programmes and curricula
T2.4.1 required an examination of existing engineering programmes across European HE that incorporate interdisciplinary content to identify trends, developments, similarities and differences in interdisciplinary programmes across engineering disciplines and European countries. This information was collected by ENSC from various partner countries, ENSC also drew upon information provided in T2.1. Significant results from this research will be addressed here; further information and results are available in D2.4 produced by ENSC.
Very different situations of interdisciplinary content within engineering programmes are present across each of the HELENA countries; each being influenced by specific cultural, historical and national trends. This research revealed the following significant results:
-Austrian engineering degree courses in 'Industrial economics and management - mechanical engineering' and information management were analysed. The major difference observed in this analysis was a smaller number of non-technical subjects in the traditional degree courses.
-The research of academic programmes in Spain has revealed that Social Sciences and Law disciplines contain the highest number of courses that consider gender (71 courses), followed by the humanities and arts (31) and health science (12). Engineering and architecture disciplines contain only five courses related to gender, followed by natural sciences with only one course related to gender.
-Serbia reported that there are almost no differences between methods and content used in traditional and non-traditional engineering study programmes. In fact, Serbia reported that this distinction is problematic. One notable difference is that some non-traditional programmes offer online courses.
-Research results from Lithuania show that in the innovative study programmes that 'Electronics engineering and Management' offers, 16.5 ECTS were appointed to the social sciences as well 13 optional courses, three of which belong to the realm of social sciences. While in traditional study programmes that 'Electronics Engineering' offers, all subjects contained exceptionally technical engineering content and all optional courses were explicitly related to engineering technical content. Additionally, study programmes 'civil engineering' and 'construction mnagement' was compared. This comparison revealed that the amount of non-technical content also depends on specialisations: 'civil engineering' offers three specialisations: geotechnics with 3 subjects (13,5 ECTS) from social sciences, construction and design management with 3 subjects (12 ECTS) from social sciences and engineering architecture specialisation 2 subjects (7.5 ECTS) from social sciences. By contrast, in the study programme 'construction management' two specialisations are offered: construction economics and business, construction technology and management. Construction economics and business specialisation includes 8 subjects (36 ECTS) from social sciences, students prepare integrated projects (4,5 ECTS) and the final work is from field of social sciences. Specialisation Construction Technology and Management offers 3 subjects (10.5 ECTS) from social sciences.
-There is not much interdisciplinary engineering education in Austria and the UK compared with other European countries in the project.
-Serbia pointed out the following educational institutions that contain interdisciplinary content: School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Organisational Sciences at the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Technical Sciences at the University of Novi Sad, and Faculty of Electronic Engineering at the University of Ni.
-Lithuania presented the example of innovative scientific practice placement with the best qualified Lithuanian scientists and practitioners. Such practice provides a unique opportunity for the students from different Lithuanian regions and secondary / high schools to access the most prestigious scientific groups, teams and facilities based on research.
-In Spain UPC (UniversitatPolitécnica de Catalunya) runs a programme called 'Programa Dona' which works to relate technology to the academic and professional interests of women, and also to achieve equal opportunities in recruitment for technological professions. This programme also brings technological studies closer to young women who have to make a decision about their academic and professional future.
The objectives of WP4 were to:
-gather gender specific data on traditional and innovative pilot degree courses in E&T in Europe;
-identify successful pilot degree courses in E&T in European countries;
-analyse traditional and pilot E&T degree courses in regards to attracting and retaining female students;
-evaluate the success of pilot projects in E&T in attracting more female engineering students.
At the initial stages of the project the consortium debated on the terms 'interdisciplinary','innovative' and 'pilot' and came to the consensus to use 'interdisciplinary' rather than 'pilot' or 'innovative' for study programmes that meet our pragmatic definition of containing at least 25 % non-engineering subjects according to the ECTS count of all compulsory and optional compulsory courses; fully elective courses were not counted.
The term 'traditional' is used for mono-disciplinary degree courses or study programmes with less than 25 % of non-engineering subjects. The threshold of 25 % was a decision by the project team based on results of other studies like INDECS. 'Interdisciplinary' study programmes, thus, there are study programmes where 25 % or more of the total number of ECTS are in non-engineering disciplines. Non-engineering subjects are all subjects, except those with a focus on engineering, technology, and science. Examples of non-engineering subjects are management, business, economics, languages, cultural studies, sociology, politics, psychology, philosophy, ethics, arts, 'STS - science, technology and society', communications, law, history, design, gender studies, inter-cultural competencies, diversity management and 'soft skills'.
In addition to the degree of interdisciplinarity, the proportion of female students was assessed as well, calculating for each study programme the percentage of female among the first year students, overall student population and graduates.
The online database supported the verification of two hypotheses:
1) Engineering study programmes with more than 25% non-engineering subjects are more attractive to women than 'traditional' engineering study programmes.
2) Women who study in interdisciplinary engineering study programmes have a higher success rate than women in 'traditional' engineering study programmes.
The quantitative analysis focused on 189 study programmes in seven countries, in the fields of ICT (Austria, France, Macedonia, Serbia, and Spain), civil engineering (France and UK), environmental engineering (Lithuania), mechanical engineering (Lithuania) and industrial management engineering (Spain). 157 have less than 25% of non-engineering subjects and are, therefore, 'traditional' study programmes, and only 32 have at least 25% of non-engineering subjects and are 'interdisciplinary' study programmes that is only 15% or one sixth of the total number. The total numbers serve as an evidence that interdisciplinary study programmes have 13% points more women among the first year students, 15% points more women in the total enrolment, and 16% points more among women graduates.
The degree of interdisciplinarity is various and ranges from 0% (Austria, Serbia) to 48% (Spain). The study programme with the highest degree of interdisciplinarity is 'UAB Degree Engineering Management' in Spain with 48 % non-engineering subjects. The lowest number of female students among the first year, enrolled and graduate students was found in Austria and the United Kingdom where it is less than 20%. Those two countries show the lowest rate of women in the analysed study programmes, whereas, Macedonia has the highest rate of female students. However, all these numbers lie clearly below a gender balanced 50% mark and, therefore, summarising we can make a claim that women are under-represented in the analysed engineering study programmes in all of the HELENA consortium countries.
The hypothesis that 'interdisciplinary' study programmes have more female students is supported by the results from Austria, Spain, Lithuania, and with some limitations, due to the small sample, in Serbia. Hypothesis two, that the female's success rate is higher in interdisciplinary study programmes, is obviously validated by the results from Lithuania and Spain, and treated with caution because of the small sample size in Serbia and the United Kingdom. In Austria there is a tendency that women in interdisciplinary degree courses have a higher success rate than in mono-disciplinary study programmes. To test the significance of this result, more statistical data are needed. There is a tendency that new study programmes which were established after the Bologna process have more non-engineering subjects and are more 'interdisciplinary' (Austria, Spain).
The qualitative analysis looked more precisely at 24 case studies (whereby the Serbian team analysed two case studies in Serbia and two in Macedonia), including curricula and PR material analysis. Four degree courses were analysed in each country. For reasons of comparison, two degree courses came from the same discipline: one with more and one with less than 25% of non-engineering subjects. The curriculum analyses of the case studies show that the list of non-engineering subjects comes predominantly from the fields like management, business, economics, and languages. Some cases in Lithuania, Spain, and Serbia also cover philosophy, sociology, humanities, and environmental facets. Case studies in Austria and the UK show the highest number of non-engineering subjects in the fields of history, philosophy, design, sustainability, sociology. Gender studies courses are offered only in two Austrian interdisciplinary case studies: at Klagenfurt University as 'compulsory optional subject' and at Linz University as 'compulsory subject'.
To conclude, further research is needed in the future on the micro-level to look at and learn from good practice experience more in-depth. We have to research more precisely how concepts of inter and transdisciplinarity are being implemented into practice, especially when they are in process; providing an in-depth look at what mechanisms of resistance can be observed, in which contexts they occur, and how these constrictions can coped with in the most efficient way. There is also a need for much greater inter and transdisciplinary collaboration across various academic communities, like (higher) education research, STS, gender studies, and sustainable development scholars and practitioners (e.g. NGOs). Furthermore, interdisciplinarity not only means bringing non-engineering subjects into engineering education, it also calls for the inclusion of some science and engineering competencies into humanities, social sciences and other disciplines. There is a great demand for techno-literacy for non-engineers; not only to enable citizens in general to critically reflect developments in our technological society, but also to empower them to assess technologies and to get engaged and involved and to participate in discussions and debates about socio-technological issues. By bringing together experts from academic and non-academic sectors, not only engineering education will benefit from a more comprehensive relevance, but our society as a whole and each of us individually will profit from a deeper perception of the complex present and future, and it will empower us to participate in a socially sound and environmentally friendly, democratic, gender just, and sustainable society.
The main activities in work package 5 comprised collecting data about the background of the current E&T education and the cultural context of E&T in Europe, analysing female and male students' perception of E&T in general, analysing female and male interdisciplinary E&T students' study choices from a retrospective point of view and finally evaluating the success of pilot projects which integrate societal impacts of E&T in the curricula (analysing interviews of traditional and interdisciplinary E&T students) against the background of the European context.
Therefore, 162 interviews have been carried out in seven countries (Austria, France, Lithuania, FYROM, Serbia, Spain, and UK). 72 interviews were conducted with students from 'traditional' (rather mono-disciplinary) and 90 from 'innovative' (interdisciplinary) E&T study programmes (for detailed information see table 3). In other words, 79 interviews were carried out with female and 83 with male students.
The analysed study programmes covered a broad range of topics and comprised (in brackets are the numbers of the analysed study programmes in the respective field):
-information and communication technology (12);
-civil engineering (6);
-mechanical engineering (2);
-industrial management engineering (2);
-environmental engineering (2).
The IT sector was not only best represented among the analysed study programmes but also among the interviewees as well, 79 interviewees were ICT students, 39 interviewees study civil engineering and the rest of 44 interviewees were distributed nearly equally in the three fields of mechanical, industrial management and environmental engineering.
The results of the interviews were presented in seven countries' reports taking different context information (both educational and legal country differences) into account.
The Austrian team conducted their four HELENA case studies in four different public universities. Two old universities (Vienna University of Technology, Graz University of Technology) specialising in engineering and technology in the two biggest cities of Austria and two younger, general universities (Johannes Kepler University Linz, Alpen-AdriaUniversität Klagenfurt), where engineering and technology is not the main focus.
In France three different public institutions were chosen for the realisation of four different case studies. All three institutions are rather small and young if compared to Austria, but they differ in their national ranking, INSA Lyon is the highest ranked institution and located in the third largest city in France, while Polytech' Orléans and Polytech' Grenoble are situated in smaller cities. Polytech' Grenoble was chosen for two traditional case studies.
The Lithuanian team performed their interviews in two public universities: Kaunas University of Technology that is older, bigger, focused on Engineering and Technology, and located in the second largest city of Lithuania; and iauliai University a younger and smaller and public university in a smaller city.
Both case studies in Macedonia have been conducted at the public Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, a large but young university located in the Macedonian capital.
Both case studies in Serbia have been conducted at the public University of Belgrade, a large and old university situated in the Serbian capital.
The Spanish team performed their case study interviews in three different universities, researching the traditional case studies at public universities and the innovative case studies at a private university. Both public universities are large in size, but differ in their age, the old one (UPV, Basque Country University) is situated in Bilbao, the young one (UPC, Polytechnic University of Catalunya) is situated in Barcelona. The third university (MU, Mondragon University) differs considerably, being private, young, small and located in a smaller city.
The British team conducted their case studies at four different public universities. The oldest one is the University of Liverpool and the youngest one is Coventry University, each located in larger cities, if compared to the young universities in or near small cities: the University of Warwick and the Loughborough University.
Additionally, to the seven countries' reports, the evaluator report has been conducted using the secondary analysis of the interview data base entries.
Although a rather pragmatic working definition has been formulated in HELENA (defining study programmes with at least 25% of non-SET subjects as interdisciplinary), the case study comparison of all countries showed that there are differences within different interdisciplinary study programmes. There are ones which add single non-SET subjects to an E&T curriculum at one end, and a combination of an E&T with a non-SET subject (for instance information technology and business) on the other end. And again, at this end of the interdisciplinarity continuum, different forms of interdisciplinary engineering education exist, less on form and more on a content level. There is a significant difference when the curriculum combines management or business with engineering and when it combines philosophy or humanities with technology.
Thus, at the end of HELENA, the question has been raised what interdisciplinarity really means and if there is more than one factor, which one could be called as a success factor for an inclusive engineering education?
Considering HELENA's results of WP5, it can be stated that it is certainly not enough to simply add some non-technical subjects to an E&T study programme to make it interdisciplinary. And it is not enough to simply change some optional engineering subjects by non-technical subjects to attract students who want interdisciplinary engineering education. One promising way which students mentioned is by combining different topics in project work or more generally with problem based learning or didactics. The second way of really integrating relevant subjects to E&T with the goal of interesting and useful combinations (in theory and practice) is to combine technology with societal and ecological issues. This can not only broaden the engineering students' population but also cover the current need for green jobs and ecological and socially sound solutions of various problems like the energy crisis and climate change issues. And it would be in line with political efforts as well. The President of the European Commission (February 2010) called in 'Europe 2020' for a strategy for sustainable growth and jobs; this means 'building a competitive and sustainable economy, tackling climate change, accelerating the roll-out of smart grids and genuine EU scale networks, modernising the EU's industrial base, and turning the EU into a resource efficient economy'. (http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/president/news/statements/pdf/20100210_en.pdf p.3)
For the achievement of this political goal engineering education has to be diverse and flexible in its content, in its teaching methods and in its people: students and teachers.
TECNALIA has worked leading WP6 and undertaking the objectives planned by every task under this WP. As task leader, has written up the following deliverables:
Result: D6.1 Comparison of case studies and student perceptions (due to month 24)
-Result: D6.2 Indicators to measure overall effectiveness of E&T pilot degree courses (due to month 26).
-Result: D6.3 Benchmarking and promising practice for HE (due to month 29).
-Result: D6.4 Policy recommendations (due to month 29).
The involvement of partners during the reporting period fully met the expectations and no problems were encountered. WP4 and 5 Leaders were closely collaborating for a sound coherence of the project and were providing appropriate methodologies and materials for the development of the planned tasks. They were providing high quality guidance and advice to the partners, in order to collect their inputs that were the basis of the research done in WP6. The partners were very active and contributed substantially to the discussion of WP6 for an adequate execution.
The research done in HELENA project aimed to explore the students' perception and personal reasons for study choice of E&T, the influence of the cultural or social context in their decision, identifying which are the subtle processes and mechanisms operating in E&T education that contribute to sustaining gender inequality, and to analyse the success of 'innovative' degree courses in comparison with the 'traditional' ones in attracting more female engineering students.
HELENA's research focused on examining a wide range of European E&T interdisciplinary and traditional study programmes, providing findings concerning the women's presence in each group of study programmes. A more in-depth qualitative analysis, based on individual interviews with students has been carried out, that reinforced the main conclusions. These conclusions together with the analysis of other opportunities have provided a foundation for the formulation of a set of recommendations for strengthening female participation in E&T higher education.
WP6 took as a basis the research work undertaken along the HELENA project within the previous work packages, mainly WP4 and WP5, to define specific indicators for measuring the attractiveness of E&T study programmes towards girls as well as to explore new possibilities in high education.
The specific objectives are to:
- collect and analyse the existing indicators, specifying the methodology to measure the societal impact on the perception of science on study choice;
-define the assessment methodology and indicators to measure the societal impact on the perception of science on study choice;
-make policy recommendations.
The specific aims of WP 6 were the following:
selection of indicators, which should be able to bring on the surface the performance of attracting female students into E&T study programmes. D6.2;
-creation of a database, which concerns the gathering of information on study programmes and the calculation of selected indicators for different countries.D6.3;
-production of data, which highlights the main statistics and graphs for the selected indicators and the position of the study programme in focusing within the range of these statistics. D6.3;
-analysis and interpretation of statistics, which aims to identify the best performing and tries to find out the causes of the observed performance. D6.3;
-suggestions for improvement: the process concludes with the suggestion of measures and policy recommendations which should be taken to improve the performance of the study programme. D6.4.
WP6 was built on the results of all previous research done in the HELENA project. The objectives have been reached through the analysis of the conclusions of previous tasks by extracting their key findings and the general and country recommendations already proposed. The strategic approach to equal opportunities between women and men for the European Commission and published results of similar finished research projects or studies around women and science have been also considered (e.x.WOMENG WOMEN-CORE and PROMETEAprojects focused on women in engineering and technology; studies for monitoring progress towards gender equality in FP6).
WP6 could be considered as a meta-analysis of previous work packages. Report D6.1 (Arrizabalaga et al. 2011a) provided a synthetic review of current E&T education and the cultural context in Europe, a brief explanation about how the HELENA hypotheses (that greater interdisciplinary course content can encourage a more equal gender balance in E&T courses in Higher Education) have been supported and the main conclusions of the analysis of female and male students' perception of E&T in general and of interdisciplinary E&T fields in particular and whether this differs for students of traditional and innovative courses.
The findings and conclusions of the research of HELENA project have provided a basis for the formulation of a set of recommendations for improving the effectiveness of educational policies and study programmes in attracting more female students to engineering and technology disciplines. They are gathered in D6.4. They also highlight the need of further research in the field.
List of websites: www.fp7-helena.org
The present final report forms part of the overall effort to explore the influence of the perception of science on higher education study choice across European countries.
Women's participation in engineering occupations appears to be a key-issue for European economic and technical development, as well as a central achievement towards gender equality and social justice. A look at the recent statistics could give a euphemised impression: female's share of 40 % in the PhDfields of science, mathematics and computing seems to be relatively gender-balanced. Broadly speaking, women tend to choose humanities, education, arts, health, welfare, agriculture or veterinary studies, while men give preference to science, mathematics and computing.
Therefore, investigating gendered-based preferences and choice of study field by male and female students is of paramount importance. The aim of the project HELENA is to collect and analyse literature and data from traditional and pilot curricula, confirmed by the European higher education E&T, with the purpose to question or to confirm the above-mentioned statements and, consequently, to provide indications how to launch analogical projects and to monitor the obtained results.
The HELENA project brings together a focused and balanced partnership of organisations which share a top level commitment to the collaborative transnational research of higher education leading to engineering and scientific careers of women as well as to the improvement of career progression of women in the labour market. For the attainment of the aim, the following project objectives were set:
1.To identify and analyse relevant interdisciplinary E&T degree courses in different European countries.
2. To analyse the students' perception of these interdisciplinary and traditional E&T degree courses.
3. To evaluate the effectiveness of the existing pilot projects, developing and measuring indicators on the relationship between perception and study choice.
4. To share good practice obtained in different facets of the project and, on the basis of that, to produce recommendations for the reorganisation of university curricula at European level (Bologna process).
5. To disseminate the project results through monitoring indicators.
The state of the art overview and scoping study collated the National data for the last ten years, important figures concerning engineering education, key sources of data, including statistical indicators, literature, statistical sources and existing research and studies' statistics addressing curriculum issues in engineering higher education in the European Union (EU) and in each consortia country: Austria, France, Lithuania, Serbia, Spain and United Kingdom.
Implementing the first three objectives of the project as regards the first project objectives, HELENA research sample aimed at the engineering degree courses, on bachelor or master level. The focus was on the comparison of the traditional degree courses and the innovative degree courses. Innovative implied interdisciplinary degree courses where 25 % or more of the total number of ECTS were in non-engineering disciplines. Within the same discipline, innovative and traditional degree courses were compared. All researched parameters appeared to be equal, except the proportion of non-engineering ones.
The research was continued by interviewing students on their perception of traditional and innovative degree courses. It can be stated that quite many of the interviewed E&T students were in favour of interdisciplinary courses, although ubiquitously they experienced difficulties in naming them exactly as interdisciplinary ones. After the research was conducted, HELENA project set of recommendations addressed to policy makers and educational actors that could enable the HEIs to evaluate the effectiveness of their educational policies and study programmes in attracting more female students to engineering disciplines.
Project context and objectives:
Investigating gender-based preferences and the choice of study field by male and female students at the European Higher Education engineering studies, the following objectives for the final reporting period (Month 30) of this project have been set:
-To identify and analyse relevant interdisciplinary E&T degree courses in different European countries.
-To analyse the student's perception of the interdisciplinary and traditional E&T degree courses.
-To evaluate the effectiveness of the existing pilot projects, developing and measuring indicators on the relationship between perception and study choice.
-To share good practice identified through this experience, producing recommendations on the reorganisation of university curricula at European level (Bologna process).
Work progress and achievements during the period
Five objectives of the project in the final reporting period (Month 30) according to annex I of the grant agreement have been implemented:
-relevant interdisciplinary E&T degree courses in different European countries have been identified and analysed;
-students' perception of the interdisciplinary and traditional E&T degree courses has been analysed;
-the effectiveness of the existing pilot projects, developing and measuring indicators on the relationship between perception and study choice has been assessed;
-to share good practice identified through this experience, producing recommendations on the reorganisation of university curricula at European level (Bologna process).
Before this project the engineering curriculum research in the EU was analysed. The main findings for the last 15 years are presented below:
Universities were exploring the ways of revising the engineering curriculum in order to meet the changing needs of industry and society. Any restructuring of an engineering curriculum had to take into account the correlation between society, engineering competencies and the changing paradigm of engineering education. Decreasing student enrolment figures in engineering in many countries call for appropriate measures to be implemented including the development of attractive programmes of study and challenging learning environments.
Over the last decade there have been many initiatives in EU and other countries to encourage female to become engineers. Reviewed literature has shown that female have more negative attitudes towards engineering and technology than male do. Despite greater equality in access to higher education and employment of women's participation in engineering careers does not reflect this. Higher education engineering curriculum is male based. In construction of engineering curriculum three aspects have been neglected: 1) students' background in the light of formal and informal experience and interests, 2) students / student interactions, 3) teacher / student interaction. Innovation of the curriculum with regards to gender mainstreaming means broadly oriented integrated and content rich teaching material, diversity in teaching and learning methods.
As an academic discipline, engineering is continuously undergoing a process of rapid expansion and diversification that is now significantly characterised by interdisciplinary approaches. There is a rise of interest in increasing interdisciplinary studies. As a profession, engineering has to deal with scientific and technological matters, but increasingly economic, political, ethical, societal and environmental aspects are taken into account as well.
Introducing social science and other disciplines into engineering could, ideally, help to bridge the gap that exists between producers and consumers of technology. Social sciences, humanities, cultural and management studies are also as important as the traditional applied sciences for the portfolio of engineering competencies because students need to understand the financial, business, environmental, economic and social constraints in which engineers operate. Most of the studies and projects showed that interdisciplinary curriculum is one of the central elements for fighting against gender and engineering stereotypes.
Reviewing literature of engineering education and curriculum, learning and teaching methods we identified that many studies have been presented in the last decade. Past studies have shown that a change in learning environments and the methods according to which learning takes place might increase the number of female choosing engineering careers. Supported by the experience of the United Kingdom, Scandinavia and other EU countries, higher technical educational institutions are introducing new forms of education, such as problem-based and project based education, which increases the appeal of technical education and has a positive effect on the intake, retention and output of students. Surveys and reports undertaken to document and evaluate active teaching and learning methods indicate that project and problem-based learning can satisfy the demands for required knowledge, skills and attitudes of engineering graduates. But active and experiential learning is not limited only to project orientation and problem-based learning. It should also employ ICT environments, various extra curricula activities and more traditional forms like labs, exercises and design activities.
However, changing teaching methods and didactical design of engineering courses are steps in the right direction but not sufficient for making education gender inclusive. Changes must be made also in the content, followed by redesign of existing and design of new courses. Broadening and the repositioning of the curriculum is the challenge facing technical education for the next few years. Reviewing the curriculum research findings in E&T area HELENA project partners from 6 countries - Austria, France, Spain, Serbia, Lithuania and the United Kingdom from the states of the art reviewing of curriculum research in E&T in Higher Education are as follows:
-Description of pre-existing conditions (Bologna reform impacts: standardised degree levels across Europe, more transferable and standardised; course content proscription by the professional bodies that accredit courses).
-Interdisciplinary approach to E&T courses: The interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, or holistic approaches in engineering courses are a positive step and curriculum transformations and research is moving towards innovations. Engineering Education is adopting multi-disciplinary approaches and more innovative teaching and learning methods are applied, but these are mostly developed without gender-mainstreaming in mind.
-Curriculum content in E&T with focus on gender: Rapid content development asks for new teaching techniques, and this in turn requires knowledge from non-engineering disciplines, engineering programmes may become more attractive for female students. The need to make the engineering curricula more socially relevant is universally recognised.
-Teaching techniques and demanded skill system: Alongside the developments in course content teaching environment and assessment innovations are in use. A focus on skills may be interpreted as representing a broadening of the remit of university education and at the same time a broadening of the term skill to include aspects of knowledge and theory.
-Projects leading to curricula innovations: Projects are an approach to non-traditional educational schemes for engineering students and teachers. As study programmes are mostly bound with output standards that make adding optional, interdisciplinary modules to existing programmes difficult, the gender-inclusive teaching and learning methods are successfully implemented through project work.
-Market requirements and employers' needs, marketing of E&T courses: Innovations are mostly focused on making engineering more relevant to industry and to students themselves. Scientists as well as employers emphasise that there is a demand for engineers who can work 'outside the boundaries of their own disciplines'. Engineering curriculum development and research are not usually framed within gender mainstreaming debates and rather focus upon economic and technological imperatives. As the main task is to make up curriculum to fit labour market needs, gender is just not the most important in developments in engineering curriculum during a period of widespread innovation and progress, which in itself offers a good opportunity to embed gender inclusive measures.
-The research on traditional and non-traditional engineering study programmes, good practice in engineering education. Only some studies have taken a gendered view of engineering curriculum developments, others have not addressed this issue at all. Generally, the developments of engineering study programmes are under investigation but not in a gender dimension. The reasons for this are not clear. It may well be that the best way to develop engineering curriculum in a more inclusive vain is by the 'backdoor', as more overt attempts to address women's position in the technical and scientific fields may be viewed as counterproductive.
Describing the establishment and development of engineering education in 6 countries, information on the 'standard' engineering education organisation (engineering fields, number of hours allocated to disciplines in different curricula, students' recruitment means, information on student withdrawal from the course, organisation of exams, training periods, relationship with the industry, women-only E&T degree courses existing, Bologna process implementation, etc.) in each country, the innovativeness of degree courses were characterised. The degree of interdisciplinary subjects as far as the content was concerned and the amount of modern didactics (team-teaching, project work, group works, problem-based learning) were taken into account. The explicit criteria in order to identify the pilot innovative E&T courses, leading more women to engineering studies and the overall methodology of research has been carried out.
The project research methodology reflects different levels of data collection: quantitative data collected by WP4 about percentage and types of ECTS in engineering degree courses, with corresponding proportion of women students; qualitative research work on the experience of students studying in engineering degree courses: interviews including biographical data with short questionnaires (WP5); document analysis (WP4, WP5, WP6).
HELENA research sample was focused on the engineering degree courses, at bachelor or master level. The focus was comparing 'traditional' degree courses and 'innovative' degree courses. 'Innovative' is defined as interdisciplinary degree courses where 25 % or more of the total number of ECTS are in non-engineering disciplines. In the same discipline (electrical engineering, ICT, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, etc.), 'innovative' and 'traditional' degree courses were compared, all parameters turned out to be equal except the proportion of non-engineering ECTS.
In each country, 2 disciplines were identified. The identification of disciplines was made according to the existing classifications in each country.
For quantitative data, data was collected on at least 30 % of the existing degree courses of each country. For qualitative data, in each country at least 2 case studies per discipline were chosen: a traditional one and an innovative one. The total number of case studies was at least 4 in each country.
186 study programmes were analysed: 31 interdisciplinary and 155 'traditional' study programmes. Empirical data showed to which extent interdisciplinary programmes are being implemented in different countries: from 0 % (UK, Serbia, and Austria) up to more than 40 %: 41 % (Lithuania, Engineering of storage and proceeding of agricultural products); 43 % (Austria, Information Management); 48 % (Spain, Degree engineering management).
The first hypothesis is based on the statement that engineering study programmes with more than 25 % non-engineering subjects are more attractive to women than traditional engineering study programmes supported by the results of research in Austria, Lithuania and Spain.
The second hypothesis is based on the claim that women who study in interdisciplinary engineering study programmes have a higher success rate than women in traditional engineering study programmes supported by the results of research in Lithuania and Spain.
Both hypotheses were supported by the following results: interdisciplinary, i.e. more innovative study programmes have about 10 % more women than the average of all analysed study programmes. Engineering study programmes with more than 25 % of non-engineering subjects are more attractive to women than traditional engineering study programmes and women have a higher success rate in these programmes.
Research methodology provided three main steps for the analysis of the students' perception of both interdisciplinary and traditional E&T degree courses: female and male students' perception and their retrospective facilitated the identification of reasons for study choice (or non-choice) of E&T and were qualitatively analysed. Students' perception and reasons for study choice (or non-choice) of E&T were analysed within the background of the E&T education and the cultural context of E&T in the particular countries. Students of interdisciplinary and other traditional E&T degree courses were interviewed, in order to distinguish between the effect of the societal content and other influential variables of this pilot project of degree courses.
Through the state of the art we explored the existing data both qualitatively and quantitatively. The interactive mixed methodology was extremely useful when interpreting and analysing the new data from the fieldwork. Taking different cultural backgrounds into consideration, a specific process for designing research, reporting, analysing and interpreting data was worked out: guidelines were collaboratively designed in the English language. They were translated into national languages according to a clear procedure (translation guidebook).
The interview questionnaire with the 2 additional questions, taking the national contexts into account, was constructed and case study methodology provided. Case studies imply interviews with female and male students of traditional and interdisciplinary study programmes and triangulation of interviews (interpretation of country specific results within the consortium). 158 interviews in seven countries were conducted: Austria, France, Lithuania, Macedonia, Serbia, Spain, United Kingdom (72 interviews with students from traditional and 86 from innovative (interdisciplinary) case studies and 77 interviews with female students and 81 with male students) were carried out.
Countries summarised the results of qualitative work according to the specific methodology, question by question, for each question applying research instruments and adding some comments to explain the specific cultural settings or proposing their own interpretation. The summaries were performed in the English language.
For the evaluation of the effectiveness of the existing (interdisciplinary) pilot projects, developing and measuring indicators on the relationship between perception and study choice were set: the number of students in the first year of studies, disaggregated by sex in each study programme; total number of students enrolled, disaggregated by sex; total number of graduates, disaggregated by sex; the percentage and absolute numbers for the student population in each study program; the number of innovative study programmes containing more than 25 % of interdisciplinary subjects in the study programme.
The HELENA project set of recommendations addressed to policy makers and educational actors that enabled the HEIs to evaluate the effectiveness of their educational policies and study programmes in attracting more female students to engineering disciplines. HELENA project addressed the under-representation of women studying for engineering and technical degrees and explored the attractiveness of innovative study programmes with the aim of contributing to a more equal participation in higher education. The HELENA project recommendations could be used and integrated within new policies to improve gender equality in European higher education. Different key groups could benefit from them: policy-makers and educational actors related with E&T education at European and national level, and in particular for HEIs, to enable them to evaluate the effectiveness of their educational policies and study programmes in attracting more female students to engineering disciplines. This approach allowed every group to make suitable decisions about their strategy for gender mainstreaming and educational management and policy.
Project disseminated research results through monitoring indicators and indicated collaborative project results and their potential impact and use:
1) Two hypotheses were proved: (a) interdisciplinary study programmes with more than 25 % of non-engineering subjects have more female students and(b) interdisciplinary study programmes with more than 25 % of non-engineering subjects have more female graduates.
2) Key competencies and resources of consortium partners from different backgrounds, research cultures and experiences were cooperated.
3) Engineering education can benefit from the richness and various perspectives and expertise which individuals from different ethnicity, culture possess.
4) Research results support the idea of reform of higher education in the enablement of generally transferable abilities and skills.
5) Mutual learning amongst the partners works in favour of cross-cultural research and collaboration.
Project results:
As leader of WP1 Siauliai University investigated gender-based preferences and the choice of study field by male and female students at the European higher education engineering studies. The following objectives for the final reporting period (month 30) of this project have been set:
- to identify and analyse relevant interdisciplinary E&T degree courses in different European countries;
-to analyse the student's perception of the interdisciplinary and traditional E&T degree courses;
-to evaluate the effectiveness of the existing pilot projects, developing and measuring indicators on the relationship between perception and study choice;
-to share good practice identified through this experience, producing recommendations on the reorganisation of university curricula at European level (Bologna process).
Five objectives of the project in the final reporting period (Month 30) according to annex I of the grant agreement have been implemented:
-relevant interdisciplinary E&T degree courses in different European countries have been identified and analysed;
-students' perception of the interdisciplinary and traditional E&T degree courses has been analysed;
-the effectiveness of the existing pilot projects, developing and measuring indicators on the relationship between perception and study choice has been assessed;
-to share good practice identified through this experience, producing recommendations on the reorganisation of university curricula at European level (Bologna process).
As the leader of WP2 Loughborough University (LoU) liaised with all partners during 2009 to successfully schedule and coordinate tasks (T2.1 T2.2 T2.3 and T2.4) and deliverables related (D2.1 D2.2 D2.3 and D2.4) in order to meet the requirements set out in Annex I (as summarised above). The description of the results shows the performance of the specific tasks and is set out below.
T2.1: State-of-the-art review overview
Key sources of national data and existing research on engineering education were identified in D2.1 in line with T2.1.1 (annex I). Further information was collected to complete T2.1.2. This information required that partner countries identified their research population, definitions (of innovative / traditional courses), recognised the limits of the study and hypotheses (e.g. subfields of engineering) and areas of validation (e.g. potential case studies). This information was collected and organised by each partner as stipulated on p.16 annex 1. Further information is available in D2.1 produced by ENSC and LoU.
Austria (UNI-KLU) provided statistical information from StatistischesTaschenbuch regarding the number of male and female students undertaking engineering courses in HE across Austria between 1998 and 2008. These statistics reveal that historically no more than 33% of engineering students are female, yet the rates of participation of female have increased from 11% as regards some indicators from 1998. Previous research identified how cultural stereotypes undermine female participation in engineering and that interdisciplinary courses might be productive to encourage gender balance. In response to T2.1.2 UNI-KLU indicated that 40 engineering courses exist in Austria, covering civil engineering, architecture, regional planning, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, applied natural sciences, applied natural sciences short cycle courses. Austria defines an innovative course as one that has an interdisciplinary content and uses modern didactics (e.g. group work, coursework). Two potential case studies were identified in Germany and Austria that demonstrated innovative measures.
The United Kingdom (LoU) provided statistical information from HESA (Higher Education Statistics Agency) regarding the number of male and female students undertaking engineering courses in HE across the UK in 2007 / 8 in line with T2.1.1. These figures reveal that less than 20% of students on engineering courses in the UK are female. In response toT2.1.2 LoU indicated that 200 engineering departments exist in the UK each offering degree courses, covering a wide range of engineering disciplines including civil, mechanical, electrical, maritime, chemical, general, and biotechnological and production. The UK (LoU) most closely identifies interdisciplinary work and modern didactics, including industrial placements as innovative. Four potential case studies were identified that attempt to widen participation in engineering through innovative techniques.
In line with T2.1.1 France (ENSC) provided statistical information from Ministère de l'ÉducationetMinistère la recherché of the number of male and female students undertaking engineering courses in HE across France in 2008. These figures reveal that around 25% of students on engineering courses in France are female; this has increased from around 13% in the mid-1980. Previous research on gender and engineering education in France reveals how cultural stereotypes, expectations and meanings influence the gendering of engineering education. In response to T2.1.2 ENSC indicated that there are 220 institutions delivering engineering degree courses, covering inter alia manufacturing engineering, medical engineering and industrial engineering. ENSC most closely identifies with innovative courses that are interdisciplinary; five potential case studies were identified along these lines.
As regards T2.1.1 Lithuania (SU) provided statistical information from AIKOS about the number of male and female students undertaking science and engineering courses in HE across Lithuania between 2001 and 2007. These figures show that 12% of students taking engineering and science courses in Lithuania are female; this figure has increased around 10% in 2000. Previous research showed that educational and professional institutions did not empower and encourage women to view science and technology studies in positive terms, as compared to male. In response to T2.1.2. SU indicated that there are around 50 institutions providing science and technology courses, the main areas of study include biotechnology, medical engineering, information technology and electronics. SU identifies modern didactics and interdisciplinary content as innovative and, thus, suggested nine potential case studies of courses along these terms in Lithuania and potentially two in Russia (in the Russian language).
As per T2.1.1 Serbia (PUPIN) indicated that statistical information was available from the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia to indicate the number of male and female students taking engineering courses in Serbia between 1998 and 2008. In 2007 / 08 36 % of students taking science and technology subjects were female. Previous research on gender and engineering education in Serbia researched the questions regarding the lack of power of women in decision making in different institutions and the effect of women's social role (e.g. in terms of the family) on their education opportunities. In response to T2.1.2. PUPIN indicated that there were four institutions in Serbia offering engineering courses. These institutions offer courses in: electrical engineering, computer science, mechanics, civil engineering, traffic engineering, architecture, industrial engineering, environmental engineering, technology and metallurgy, mine and geology, mechatronics and others. PUPIN identifies innovative programmes as interdisciplinary with modern didactics; two case studies were identified along these lines, one in Serbia and one in Slovenia.
In line with T2.1.1 Spain (TECNALIA) provided statistical information from Eurostat to indicate the number of male and female students taking engineering courses in Serbia between 1998 and 2007. 28.1% of female engineering students in Spain in 2007 were women. Previous research on gender and engineering education in Spain identified the importance of viewing gender as a social construction of cultural meanings and stereotypes, which influences decision-making and expectations about male and female careers and education, causing some discrimination against women in perceptions of engineering. In response to T2.1.2 TECNALIA indicated that there were 71 institutions offering science and engineering courses in Spain, including civil, geological, mining, industrial and maritime engineering. TECNALIA identified interdisciplinary content and modern didactics as their definition of an innovative course; five potential case studies were identified.
T2.2: State-of-the-art review of career choice and gender in engineering
Results for T2.2 were reported in D2.2 produced by LoU. These results were based upon information provided by each partner country. T2.2.1 required the identification of existing research and the impact of gender on career choice. The choice of what subject to study is still deeply gendered across the HELENA partner countries, as demonstrated by the statistical indicators on students in higher education (as summarised by the results to T2.1). The decision to study engineering is influenced by interests and abilities, knowledge of the subject and 'contact' with engineering. Science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects at school level are crucial in terms of access to engineering higher education, in terms of child's ability, success, as well as confidence and self-efficacy. Key factors that impact on the decision to study engineering are as follows:
-direct contact with engineering - via family members;
-background and socialisation - middle-upper class, supportive parents;
-personality - self-image and gender identity, motivations, 'act of rebellion'.
It has also been established in extant research that perceptions about engineering can have an impact on whether a young adult will decide to study engineering once they have achieved success at school level. Once the decision to study engineering has been made, series of factors can influence the subsequent decision to pursue a career in engineering. The research has explored the academic culture dominant in engineering departments and higher education institutions and has identified that the masculinity of culture in higher education reflects the culture found in industry. Sometimes there is a denial of any problem with regards to women's interaction with the masculine culture, but there is also curriculum development and the desire to innovate engineering curriculum along the lines of interdisciplinary content and innovative teaching methods. The research that has looked at the role of industrial placements and professional engineering identity in the decision to pursue a career in engineering and analysed how women, in particular, experience these changes, has found that industrial placements serve as an important socialisation tool in terms of professional identity. In these contexts women learn to manage their gender problems and adopt 'coping strategies'.
T2.2.2 required an exploration of whether women were more likely to study engineering than men. This task required the partners to examine the datasets initially identified in T2.1. These datasets reveal that although in most countries women now make up over half of the higher education student population they make up a much smaller proportion in science, engineering and technology disciplines; ranging from a low of 18% of students in the United Kingdom, to a high of 35% in Serbia. In summary, from the analysis we may state that:
-Women, as a percentage of engineering students, have steadily increased their participation over the last four decades - the latest figures from partner countries demonstrate that women's participation rates in engineering higher education vary from 18-35%.
-Women's dropout rates are lower than average in engineering education and success rates are higher.
-Feminine disciplines in engineering - architecture, chemical engineering.
-Women are consistently under-represented in mechanical engineering and electrical and electronic engineering.
-Gender differentiation by discipline remains despite women's access to higher education.
-Taking into consideration women's increase in the access to higher education we can see that women's interest in taking up engineering at university has not increased over the last four decades. The percentage of women students in higher education who choose engineering ranges from 15% in Serbia to 2% in the UK.
Overall, the results of T2.2.2 indicate that women are still significantly less likely to study engineering than men across the HELENA partner countries.
T2.3: State-of-the-art review of curriculum research in engineering HE
T2.3.1 required the identification of existing research addressing the impact of curriculum content in engineering HE. Significant results from this research will be addressed here; further information and results are available in D2.3 produced by SU.
Universities across the HELENA partner countries were exploring ways of revising the engineering curriculum in order to meet the changing needs of industry and society. Any restructuring of an engineering curriculum must take into account the correlation between society, engineering competencies and the changing paradigm of engineering education. The 'employability' of graduates depends on a combination of high technical knowledge, practical experience and soft skills. Decreasing student enrolment figures in engineering in many countries call for appropriate measures to be implemented including the development of attractive programmes of studies and challenging learning environments.
Over the last decade there have been many initiatives in EU and other countries to encourage female to become engineers. The reviewed literature has shown that female have more negative attitudes toward engineering and technology than do male. Despite greater equality in the access to higher education and women's employment, participation in engineering careers does not reflect this. Higher education engineering curriculum is male based. While designing engineering curricula three aspects have been neglected:
1) students' background in the light of formal and informal experience and interests;
2) student / student interactions;
3) teacher / student interaction.
Innovation of the curriculum as regards gender mainstreaming means broadly oriented, integrated and content rich teaching material, diversity in teaching and learning methods.
T2.3.2 required an examination of if and why engineering curricula are changing and developing to adopt a more interdisciplinary approach. It is apparent that in most partner countries more interdisciplinary approaches to engineering education were being implemented. There are various reasons for this change. As an academic discipline, engineering is continuously undergoing a process of rapid expansion and diversification that is now significantly impacted by interdisciplinary approaches. There is an upsurge in the interest in interdisciplinary studies. As a profession, engineering has to deal with scientific and technological matters, but increasingly economic, political, ethical, societal and environmental aspects are taken into account as well.
Society places many demands on an engineer: to be humanistic technicians, be adept in interdisciplinary skills that include both technical and non-technical competencies that enable them to critically analyse, solve problems, communicate effectively, and be able to learn continuously as the workplace changes. Introducing social science and other disciplines into engineering could ideally help to bridge the gap that exists between producers and consumers of technology. Social sciences, humanities, cultural and management studies are as important as the traditional applied sciences for the portfolio of engineering competencies because students need to understand the financial, business, environmental, economic and social constraints in which engineers operate. That is why engineering education in the HELENA partner countries was adopting a more multi-disciplinary approach, innovative teaching and learning methods. These changes were mainly implemented without taking gender-mainstreaming into account. It was evident that further research was needed to perceive how new, innovative teaching techniques and practices, and curriculum development impact on students and whether there were societal and gender differences concerning these initiatives.
T2.4: Start-of-the-art review of documentary analysis of higher education engineering programmes and curricula
T2.4.1 required an examination of existing engineering programmes across European HE that incorporate interdisciplinary content to identify trends, developments, similarities and differences in interdisciplinary programmes across engineering disciplines and European countries. This information was collected by ENSC from various partner countries, ENSC also drew upon information provided in T2.1. Significant results from this research will be addressed here; further information and results are available in D2.4 produced by ENSC.
Very different situations of interdisciplinary content within engineering programmes are present across each of the HELENA countries; each being influenced by specific cultural, historical and national trends. This research revealed the following significant results:
-Austrian engineering degree courses in 'Industrial economics and management - mechanical engineering' and information management were analysed. The major difference observed in this analysis was a smaller number of non-technical subjects in the traditional degree courses.
-The research of academic programmes in Spain has revealed that Social Sciences and Law disciplines contain the highest number of courses that consider gender (71 courses), followed by the humanities and arts (31) and health science (12). Engineering and architecture disciplines contain only five courses related to gender, followed by natural sciences with only one course related to gender.
-Serbia reported that there are almost no differences between methods and content used in traditional and non-traditional engineering study programmes. In fact, Serbia reported that this distinction is problematic. One notable difference is that some non-traditional programmes offer online courses.
-Research results from Lithuania show that in the innovative study programmes that 'Electronics engineering and Management' offers, 16.5 ECTS were appointed to the social sciences as well 13 optional courses, three of which belong to the realm of social sciences. While in traditional study programmes that 'Electronics Engineering' offers, all subjects contained exceptionally technical engineering content and all optional courses were explicitly related to engineering technical content. Additionally, study programmes 'civil engineering' and 'construction mnagement' was compared. This comparison revealed that the amount of non-technical content also depends on specialisations: 'civil engineering' offers three specialisations: geotechnics with 3 subjects (13,5 ECTS) from social sciences, construction and design management with 3 subjects (12 ECTS) from social sciences and engineering architecture specialisation 2 subjects (7.5 ECTS) from social sciences. By contrast, in the study programme 'construction management' two specialisations are offered: construction economics and business, construction technology and management. Construction economics and business specialisation includes 8 subjects (36 ECTS) from social sciences, students prepare integrated projects (4,5 ECTS) and the final work is from field of social sciences. Specialisation Construction Technology and Management offers 3 subjects (10.5 ECTS) from social sciences.
-There is not much interdisciplinary engineering education in Austria and the UK compared with other European countries in the project.
-Serbia pointed out the following educational institutions that contain interdisciplinary content: School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Organisational Sciences at the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Technical Sciences at the University of Novi Sad, and Faculty of Electronic Engineering at the University of Ni.
-Lithuania presented the example of innovative scientific practice placement with the best qualified Lithuanian scientists and practitioners. Such practice provides a unique opportunity for the students from different Lithuanian regions and secondary / high schools to access the most prestigious scientific groups, teams and facilities based on research.
-In Spain UPC (UniversitatPolitécnica de Catalunya) runs a programme called 'Programa Dona' which works to relate technology to the academic and professional interests of women, and also to achieve equal opportunities in recruitment for technological professions. This programme also brings technological studies closer to young women who have to make a decision about their academic and professional future.
The objectives of WP4 were to:
-gather gender specific data on traditional and innovative pilot degree courses in E&T in Europe;
-identify successful pilot degree courses in E&T in European countries;
-analyse traditional and pilot E&T degree courses in regards to attracting and retaining female students;
-evaluate the success of pilot projects in E&T in attracting more female engineering students.
At the initial stages of the project the consortium debated on the terms 'interdisciplinary','innovative' and 'pilot' and came to the consensus to use 'interdisciplinary' rather than 'pilot' or 'innovative' for study programmes that meet our pragmatic definition of containing at least 25 % non-engineering subjects according to the ECTS count of all compulsory and optional compulsory courses; fully elective courses were not counted.
The term 'traditional' is used for mono-disciplinary degree courses or study programmes with less than 25 % of non-engineering subjects. The threshold of 25 % was a decision by the project team based on results of other studies like INDECS. 'Interdisciplinary' study programmes, thus, there are study programmes where 25 % or more of the total number of ECTS are in non-engineering disciplines. Non-engineering subjects are all subjects, except those with a focus on engineering, technology, and science. Examples of non-engineering subjects are management, business, economics, languages, cultural studies, sociology, politics, psychology, philosophy, ethics, arts, 'STS - science, technology and society', communications, law, history, design, gender studies, inter-cultural competencies, diversity management and 'soft skills'.
In addition to the degree of interdisciplinarity, the proportion of female students was assessed as well, calculating for each study programme the percentage of female among the first year students, overall student population and graduates.
The online database supported the verification of two hypotheses:
1) Engineering study programmes with more than 25% non-engineering subjects are more attractive to women than 'traditional' engineering study programmes.
2) Women who study in interdisciplinary engineering study programmes have a higher success rate than women in 'traditional' engineering study programmes.
The quantitative analysis focused on 189 study programmes in seven countries, in the fields of ICT (Austria, France, Macedonia, Serbia, and Spain), civil engineering (France and UK), environmental engineering (Lithuania), mechanical engineering (Lithuania) and industrial management engineering (Spain). 157 have less than 25% of non-engineering subjects and are, therefore, 'traditional' study programmes, and only 32 have at least 25% of non-engineering subjects and are 'interdisciplinary' study programmes that is only 15% or one sixth of the total number. The total numbers serve as an evidence that interdisciplinary study programmes have 13% points more women among the first year students, 15% points more women in the total enrolment, and 16% points more among women graduates.
The degree of interdisciplinarity is various and ranges from 0% (Austria, Serbia) to 48% (Spain). The study programme with the highest degree of interdisciplinarity is 'UAB Degree Engineering Management' in Spain with 48 % non-engineering subjects. The lowest number of female students among the first year, enrolled and graduate students was found in Austria and the United Kingdom where it is less than 20%. Those two countries show the lowest rate of women in the analysed study programmes, whereas, Macedonia has the highest rate of female students. However, all these numbers lie clearly below a gender balanced 50% mark and, therefore, summarising we can make a claim that women are under-represented in the analysed engineering study programmes in all of the HELENA consortium countries.
The hypothesis that 'interdisciplinary' study programmes have more female students is supported by the results from Austria, Spain, Lithuania, and with some limitations, due to the small sample, in Serbia. Hypothesis two, that the female's success rate is higher in interdisciplinary study programmes, is obviously validated by the results from Lithuania and Spain, and treated with caution because of the small sample size in Serbia and the United Kingdom. In Austria there is a tendency that women in interdisciplinary degree courses have a higher success rate than in mono-disciplinary study programmes. To test the significance of this result, more statistical data are needed. There is a tendency that new study programmes which were established after the Bologna process have more non-engineering subjects and are more 'interdisciplinary' (Austria, Spain).
The qualitative analysis looked more precisely at 24 case studies (whereby the Serbian team analysed two case studies in Serbia and two in Macedonia), including curricula and PR material analysis. Four degree courses were analysed in each country. For reasons of comparison, two degree courses came from the same discipline: one with more and one with less than 25% of non-engineering subjects. The curriculum analyses of the case studies show that the list of non-engineering subjects comes predominantly from the fields like management, business, economics, and languages. Some cases in Lithuania, Spain, and Serbia also cover philosophy, sociology, humanities, and environmental facets. Case studies in Austria and the UK show the highest number of non-engineering subjects in the fields of history, philosophy, design, sustainability, sociology. Gender studies courses are offered only in two Austrian interdisciplinary case studies: at Klagenfurt University as 'compulsory optional subject' and at Linz University as 'compulsory subject'.
To conclude, further research is needed in the future on the micro-level to look at and learn from good practice experience more in-depth. We have to research more precisely how concepts of inter and transdisciplinarity are being implemented into practice, especially when they are in process; providing an in-depth look at what mechanisms of resistance can be observed, in which contexts they occur, and how these constrictions can coped with in the most efficient way. There is also a need for much greater inter and transdisciplinary collaboration across various academic communities, like (higher) education research, STS, gender studies, and sustainable development scholars and practitioners (e.g. NGOs). Furthermore, interdisciplinarity not only means bringing non-engineering subjects into engineering education, it also calls for the inclusion of some science and engineering competencies into humanities, social sciences and other disciplines. There is a great demand for techno-literacy for non-engineers; not only to enable citizens in general to critically reflect developments in our technological society, but also to empower them to assess technologies and to get engaged and involved and to participate in discussions and debates about socio-technological issues. By bringing together experts from academic and non-academic sectors, not only engineering education will benefit from a more comprehensive relevance, but our society as a whole and each of us individually will profit from a deeper perception of the complex present and future, and it will empower us to participate in a socially sound and environmentally friendly, democratic, gender just, and sustainable society.
The main activities in work package 5 comprised collecting data about the background of the current E&T education and the cultural context of E&T in Europe, analysing female and male students' perception of E&T in general, analysing female and male interdisciplinary E&T students' study choices from a retrospective point of view and finally evaluating the success of pilot projects which integrate societal impacts of E&T in the curricula (analysing interviews of traditional and interdisciplinary E&T students) against the background of the European context.
Therefore, 162 interviews have been carried out in seven countries (Austria, France, Lithuania, FYROM, Serbia, Spain, and UK). 72 interviews were conducted with students from 'traditional' (rather mono-disciplinary) and 90 from 'innovative' (interdisciplinary) E&T study programmes (for detailed information see table 3). In other words, 79 interviews were carried out with female and 83 with male students.
The analysed study programmes covered a broad range of topics and comprised (in brackets are the numbers of the analysed study programmes in the respective field):
-information and communication technology (12);
-civil engineering (6);
-mechanical engineering (2);
-industrial management engineering (2);
-environmental engineering (2).
The IT sector was not only best represented among the analysed study programmes but also among the interviewees as well, 79 interviewees were ICT students, 39 interviewees study civil engineering and the rest of 44 interviewees were distributed nearly equally in the three fields of mechanical, industrial management and environmental engineering.
The results of the interviews were presented in seven countries' reports taking different context information (both educational and legal country differences) into account.
The Austrian team conducted their four HELENA case studies in four different public universities. Two old universities (Vienna University of Technology, Graz University of Technology) specialising in engineering and technology in the two biggest cities of Austria and two younger, general universities (Johannes Kepler University Linz, Alpen-AdriaUniversität Klagenfurt), where engineering and technology is not the main focus.
In France three different public institutions were chosen for the realisation of four different case studies. All three institutions are rather small and young if compared to Austria, but they differ in their national ranking, INSA Lyon is the highest ranked institution and located in the third largest city in France, while Polytech' Orléans and Polytech' Grenoble are situated in smaller cities. Polytech' Grenoble was chosen for two traditional case studies.
The Lithuanian team performed their interviews in two public universities: Kaunas University of Technology that is older, bigger, focused on Engineering and Technology, and located in the second largest city of Lithuania; and iauliai University a younger and smaller and public university in a smaller city.
Both case studies in Macedonia have been conducted at the public Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, a large but young university located in the Macedonian capital.
Both case studies in Serbia have been conducted at the public University of Belgrade, a large and old university situated in the Serbian capital.
The Spanish team performed their case study interviews in three different universities, researching the traditional case studies at public universities and the innovative case studies at a private university. Both public universities are large in size, but differ in their age, the old one (UPV, Basque Country University) is situated in Bilbao, the young one (UPC, Polytechnic University of Catalunya) is situated in Barcelona. The third university (MU, Mondragon University) differs considerably, being private, young, small and located in a smaller city.
The British team conducted their case studies at four different public universities. The oldest one is the University of Liverpool and the youngest one is Coventry University, each located in larger cities, if compared to the young universities in or near small cities: the University of Warwick and the Loughborough University.
Additionally, to the seven countries' reports, the evaluator report has been conducted using the secondary analysis of the interview data base entries.
Although a rather pragmatic working definition has been formulated in HELENA (defining study programmes with at least 25% of non-SET subjects as interdisciplinary), the case study comparison of all countries showed that there are differences within different interdisciplinary study programmes. There are ones which add single non-SET subjects to an E&T curriculum at one end, and a combination of an E&T with a non-SET subject (for instance information technology and business) on the other end. And again, at this end of the interdisciplinarity continuum, different forms of interdisciplinary engineering education exist, less on form and more on a content level. There is a significant difference when the curriculum combines management or business with engineering and when it combines philosophy or humanities with technology.
Thus, at the end of HELENA, the question has been raised what interdisciplinarity really means and if there is more than one factor, which one could be called as a success factor for an inclusive engineering education?
Considering HELENA's results of WP5, it can be stated that it is certainly not enough to simply add some non-technical subjects to an E&T study programme to make it interdisciplinary. And it is not enough to simply change some optional engineering subjects by non-technical subjects to attract students who want interdisciplinary engineering education. One promising way which students mentioned is by combining different topics in project work or more generally with problem based learning or didactics. The second way of really integrating relevant subjects to E&T with the goal of interesting and useful combinations (in theory and practice) is to combine technology with societal and ecological issues. This can not only broaden the engineering students' population but also cover the current need for green jobs and ecological and socially sound solutions of various problems like the energy crisis and climate change issues. And it would be in line with political efforts as well. The President of the European Commission (February 2010) called in 'Europe 2020' for a strategy for sustainable growth and jobs; this means 'building a competitive and sustainable economy, tackling climate change, accelerating the roll-out of smart grids and genuine EU scale networks, modernising the EU's industrial base, and turning the EU into a resource efficient economy'. (http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/president/news/statements/pdf/20100210_en.pdf p.3)
For the achievement of this political goal engineering education has to be diverse and flexible in its content, in its teaching methods and in its people: students and teachers.
TECNALIA has worked leading WP6 and undertaking the objectives planned by every task under this WP. As task leader, has written up the following deliverables:
Result: D6.1 Comparison of case studies and student perceptions (due to month 24)
-Result: D6.2 Indicators to measure overall effectiveness of E&T pilot degree courses (due to month 26).
-Result: D6.3 Benchmarking and promising practice for HE (due to month 29).
-Result: D6.4 Policy recommendations (due to month 29).
The involvement of partners during the reporting period fully met the expectations and no problems were encountered. WP4 and 5 Leaders were closely collaborating for a sound coherence of the project and were providing appropriate methodologies and materials for the development of the planned tasks. They were providing high quality guidance and advice to the partners, in order to collect their inputs that were the basis of the research done in WP6. The partners were very active and contributed substantially to the discussion of WP6 for an adequate execution.
The research done in HELENA project aimed to explore the students' perception and personal reasons for study choice of E&T, the influence of the cultural or social context in their decision, identifying which are the subtle processes and mechanisms operating in E&T education that contribute to sustaining gender inequality, and to analyse the success of 'innovative' degree courses in comparison with the 'traditional' ones in attracting more female engineering students.
HELENA's research focused on examining a wide range of European E&T interdisciplinary and traditional study programmes, providing findings concerning the women's presence in each group of study programmes. A more in-depth qualitative analysis, based on individual interviews with students has been carried out, that reinforced the main conclusions. These conclusions together with the analysis of other opportunities have provided a foundation for the formulation of a set of recommendations for strengthening female participation in E&T higher education.
WP6 took as a basis the research work undertaken along the HELENA project within the previous work packages, mainly WP4 and WP5, to define specific indicators for measuring the attractiveness of E&T study programmes towards girls as well as to explore new possibilities in high education.
The specific objectives are to:
- collect and analyse the existing indicators, specifying the methodology to measure the societal impact on the perception of science on study choice;
-define the assessment methodology and indicators to measure the societal impact on the perception of science on study choice;
-make policy recommendations.
The specific aims of WP 6 were the following:
selection of indicators, which should be able to bring on the surface the performance of attracting female students into E&T study programmes. D6.2;
-creation of a database, which concerns the gathering of information on study programmes and the calculation of selected indicators for different countries.D6.3;
-production of data, which highlights the main statistics and graphs for the selected indicators and the position of the study programme in focusing within the range of these statistics. D6.3;
-analysis and interpretation of statistics, which aims to identify the best performing and tries to find out the causes of the observed performance. D6.3;
-suggestions for improvement: the process concludes with the suggestion of measures and policy recommendations which should be taken to improve the performance of the study programme. D6.4.
WP6 was built on the results of all previous research done in the HELENA project. The objectives have been reached through the analysis of the conclusions of previous tasks by extracting their key findings and the general and country recommendations already proposed. The strategic approach to equal opportunities between women and men for the European Commission and published results of similar finished research projects or studies around women and science have been also considered (e.x.WOMENG WOMEN-CORE and PROMETEAprojects focused on women in engineering and technology; studies for monitoring progress towards gender equality in FP6).
WP6 could be considered as a meta-analysis of previous work packages. Report D6.1 (Arrizabalaga et al. 2011a) provided a synthetic review of current E&T education and the cultural context in Europe, a brief explanation about how the HELENA hypotheses (that greater interdisciplinary course content can encourage a more equal gender balance in E&T courses in Higher Education) have been supported and the main conclusions of the analysis of female and male students' perception of E&T in general and of interdisciplinary E&T fields in particular and whether this differs for students of traditional and innovative courses.
The findings and conclusions of the research of HELENA project have provided a basis for the formulation of a set of recommendations for improving the effectiveness of educational policies and study programmes in attracting more female students to engineering and technology disciplines. They are gathered in D6.4. They also highlight the need of further research in the field.
List of websites: www.fp7-helena.org