2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The underrepresentation of women in STEM and especially engineering remains a persistent challenge, requiring urgent and innovative pedagogical strategies. Research suggests that contextualizing mathematics courses with real-world applications, particularly with an engineering context, can significantly enhance student engagement, especially for women, and positively affect their attitude towards STEM majors. To investigate this theory in a community college setting, we designed six modules for six different subjects in the Intermediate Algebra course. The intervention involved embedding real-world STEM applications with altruistic components into the curriculum to make algebra more engaging and relevant to women. Each of the six modules introduced students to word problems connected to physics, engineering, environmental science, and health care.
The designed modules were incorporated and piloted through twelve sections from fall 2021 through spring 2023. In total, 305 students enrolled in contextualized sections, and 1531 students enrolled in regular sessions at the same time. Students’ grades in the course and their academic and demographic background information were collected from the institution’s research department, allowing for an analysis of performance outcomes, including course completion rates, grades, and gender-specific trends.
Moreover, to further gauge students' STEM identity, all students in all course sections during this period were asked to fill out a survey at the start and end of the semester. The survey questions aimed to measure changes in students’ attitudes toward mathematics and word problems, interest in STEM careers, and their intentions to pursue further studies in STEM. In total, 288 students answered the survey question at both the beginning and the end of the semester, out of which 77 were enrolled in the contextualized sections.
A segmented regression analysis suggests that the intervention positively impacted students’ grades in the course for high-performing students while having a negative effect on the course performance of the students who exhibited academic struggles. Preliminary analysis of the survey data shows a positive impact on students’ attitudes toward mathematics and a contradicting trend toward students’ STEM identity and future plans. Further analysis, including multiple regression, is underway to better describe the findings concerning academic and demographic factors.