2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

In undergraduate engineering programs, team projects are often used to provide students with comprehensive hands-on experiences on collaborative teams. These types of projects can present unique difficulties to all students but particularly to those who are underrepresented or marginalized in engineering. Many studies show that women are often undervalued and have negative experiences on team projects, but little work has been done that combines the impact of race and gender on teaming experience. This study aims to bridge that gap by exploring the undergraduate teaming experiences of African American females in engineering.

To understand this phenomenon, we developed a comprehensive qualitative study that emphasized their voices. This study was performed as an exploratory phenomenology to capture the nuance of the participants’ experiences rather than generalizing them into broad categories

We draw upon intergroup contact theory (ICT) to frame this study, based on the contact hypothesis to reduce anxiety due to the presence of different social groups interacting in specific conditions. The framework of intersectionality is also relevant to this project, defined as the space where two or more identities converge and influence the situation.

The participants were recruited and interviewed as part of a larger project. All participants are full-time undergraduate African American females enrolled in an engineering course with a team project. The nine participants represent a range of years in school and engineering majors. They were interviewed in a semi-structured three part interview sequence that gathered information on their background, the project itself or current status, and the participants’ reflections on the teaming experience. This paper focuses on the third and final interview.

To analyze the interview data, we developed a preliminary codebook then proceeded with thematic analysis. This was performed by 1) reviewing all nine interview transcripts to establish a base understanding, 2) creating participant profiles to include basic information, 3) re-reading each interview and noting significant statements about the participants’ experiences, 4) comparing these noteworthy and significant experiences to determine emergent codes, 5) creating a preliminary codebook that defined each code and provided examples, and 6) grouping the codes into categories to better understand the participants’ experiences. The emergent categories relate to communication, respect, identity, situational factors, and participant experience.

Analysis of these categories yielded several expected as well as novel concepts regarding female engineering students teaming experiences. There was a general trend among participants of feeling unhelpful on the team, either because they lacked a particular skill set or other team members took over the tasks at hand. Several participants experienced a general trend of poor teaming experiences leading to a negative outlook on their future in engineering and their engineering identity. Additionally, there were several comments made by participants that indicated internalized misogyny as well as race and gender-based interactions among teammates that are unique to African American females.

The implications of these and other results are discussed throughout the paper. Suggestions for faculty facilitating team projects are also provided, to bridge the gap between research and implementing into practice.