Work in progress - effect of climate and pedagogy on persistence of women in engineering programs

Our goal is to determine how climate and pedagogy affect the persistence of women in undergraduate engineering programs via a longitudinal, multi-institutional, and multivariate study. We focus on the nine institutions of the southeastern university and college coalition for engineering education from 1987 to 2004. The study uses three related data sources: the multiple-institution database for investigating engineering longitudinal development (MIDFIELD), two climate surveys, and three teaching practices surveys. We will conduct new analyses on these existing data as well as new studies focusing on research questions relating climate, pedagogy, and persistence. This triangulated and longitudinal approach provides a powerful historical context to help explain changes and successes in persistence that will reach multiple stakeholders, scaffolding earlier qualitative studies with quantitative results that can inform policymakers. Here, we introduce our study and present initial results related to our first research question.