2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The Role of STEM Society Scholarships in Supporting the Retention and Persistence of Women in Engineering and Computer Science

Presented at Women in Engineering Division (WIED) Technical Session 6 - Institutional Contexts

The future of STEM fields depends on the successful retention of women in STEM college programs. Many women receive scholarships from professional societies to support their STEM studies. However, there is a need for further exploration into the educational paths these students take and whether their scholarships influence their persistence and degree completion in STEM fields. This study aims to analyze data from the National Student Clearinghouse, with a specific focus on understanding the impact of scholarships awarded by a professional STEM society on the academic progress and outcomes of women in engineering and computer science. This paper will address the following questions such as: Do scholarship recipients graduate from in STEM, engineering, and computer science programs? If not, do they complete STEM or non-STEM degrees or discontinue their college education entirely? For those scholarship recipients still enrolled, are they still in STEM programs or have they transitioned to non-STEM programs? For those who have graduated with a STEM degree, how did the scholarship(s) and their involvement with the professional STEM society impact their decision to remain in their STEM major through graduation? To answer these questions, our primary methodology will involve analyzing descriptive statistics derived from the National Student Clearinghouse dataset. Additionally, we will conduct subgroup analyses to gain a more in-depth understanding of demographic and institutional trends. In addition, focus group interviews will further enrich the findings by providing valuable context and a deeper understanding of the outcomes derived from the quantitative data.

Authors

Rebeca Petean Society of Women Engineers [biography]

Rebeca Petean is the Research Analyst for the Society of Women Engineers and a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at Portland State University. Her work bridges research, advocacy, and equity in STEM education. Rebecca collaborates with educators, policymakers, and nonprofits to maximize the impact of STEM initiatives. Her dissertation focuses on the school-to-prison pipeline, specifically examining school safety strategies in K-12 school spaces. She explores how the integration of school safety strategies with disciplinary practices, often under zero-tolerance policies, blurs the lines between them, suggesting that both are byproducts of the school-to-prison pipeline.
Dr. Roberta Rincon Society of Women Engineers [biography]

Roberta Rincon, Ph.D., is the Director of Research and Impact for the Society of Women Engineers. She is responsible for overseeing the research activities for the organization, including collaborative research projects with external researchers and dissemination of SWE research through academic conferences, the SWE Research website, and the annual SWE State of Women in Engineering magazine issue. She is the Principal Investigator for the NSF INCLUDES-funded Women of Color in Engineering Collaborative, whose mission is to work cooperatively with other organizations to provide resources to create a supportive, encouraging, and inclusive environment in the engineering workplace. Her SWE research centers on equity issues in STEM education and the workplace, with studies on gender bias, the development of an engineering identity, and the community college transfer pathway. Prior to joining SWE, she worked in higher education policy research and on programs focused on faculty productivity and student success. She received her B.S. in Civil Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin, MBA and M.S. in Information Management from Arizona State University, and Ph.D. in Educational Policy and Planning from UT Austin.

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