2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

“I can do this”: Resilience of women students in engineering and technology courses in Portugal

Presented at Programmatic Design and Resiliency Among Women Engineers

To understand the factors that influenced female students to choose their degree programs and complete them successfully, we gathered data from 11 women undergraduate students in Chemical Engineering, Biotechnology, and Construction Management programs at a Portuguese polytechnic. All participants completed their courses within the two years following the interviews. The two authors analyzed the data gathered via interviews with individual students using thematic analysis and present four generated themes along with their implications.

The findings suggest that further research is warranted on the role of short-cycle programs within the Portuguese polytechnic sector in providing routes to help young women overcome obstacles and be successful on STEM degree programs.
In a broader context, they also suggest that outreach initiatives geared towards schoolgirls and their families could benefit from emphasizing how STEM degrees can provide a wide range of career options and are a good alternative for those still unsure what future career to pursue.

Authors

Dr. Bill Williams http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1604-748X TUDublin, Ireland [biography]

Bill Williams originally trained as a chemist at the National University of Ireland and went on to work in education in Ireland, UK, Eritrea, Kenya, Mozambique and Portugal.
He is Professor Emeritus of Instituto Politecnico de Setubal, Portugal, Adjunct Senior Fellow at TUDublin, Ireland and Researcher at CEGIST, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Universidade de Lisboa Portugal.
Dr. Shannon Chance http://orcid.org/https://0000-0001-5598-7488 University College London [biography]

Professor Shannon Chance, PhD, is a Registered Architect holding bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Architecture from Virginia Tech and a PhD in Higher Education from William and Mary. She is Lecturer and Programme Chair (Honours BSc in Building Information Modeling/Digital Construction) at Technological University Dublin and Honorary Professor at University College London. She also is a LEED Accredited Professional and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) in the UK. Shannon is Deputy Editor of the European Journal of Engineering Education and has served as Full Professor of Architecture in the USA, Chair of the Research in Engineering Education Network (REEN), Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Education, Fulbright Fellow to Ireland, and a Marie Curie Research Fellow (to both Ireland and the UK).

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 22, 2025, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 25, 2025

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For those interested in:

Broadening Participation in Engineering and Engineering Technology
gender