2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Title: Exploring the Impact of Program Name Change on Gender Diversity in STEM

Gender disparities in STEM remain a pressing concern, especially in engineering, where women receive only 20% of undergraduate degrees. This concise research paper delves into the potential influence of altering the name of an undergraduate research program on attracting female applicants. Specifically, we examine how changing the program's name from "Program 1" to "Program 2" affects the gender balance among applicants, with the other program components remaining the same. Our research reveals a notable shift in the applicant pool following the program's name change. Initially, we had fewer female applicants in “Program 1” than male students. However, following the transition to “Program 2," the number of female applicants increased, equaling almost the number of male applicants. To assess the statistical significance of the observed difference, we conducted the two-sample proportion test, which resulted in a p-value of 0.233, yielding insufficient evidence of a significant difference in the proportions of female applicants between the two programs. However, an intriguing finding emerged when we focused exclusively on the "Program 1" applicants. We expect both male and female applicants to be 50% each. However, the proportion of female applicants in this group did not align with the expected 50/50 gender distribution and yielded a p-value of 0.042, suggesting that female applicants in the "Program 1" applicant pool were significantly lower than 50%. While the overall comparison between the two program names did not yield statistical significance, a deeper analysis within "Program 1" uncovered a significant difference. These findings underscore the importance of program nomenclature as a factor in promoting gender diversity in STEM education and creating a more inclusive environment for underrepresented groups in the field.