Contribution of personal factors for a better understanding of the gender effects of freshmen in mechanical engineering

The performance in software engineering tasks like modeling are influenced by different factors. In addition to knowledge and cognitive abilities, further characteristics impact performances. Those personal factors are different for males and females and contribute to gender differences in software engineering. Knowledge about correlates of gender specific performance provides information for the development of educational methods to increase females´ persistence and performance in software engineering. The recent study is focused on gender aspects in personal factors and their relationship to freshmen performance in modeling tasks. Results indicated several factors (e.g. cognitive abilities, self-efficacy) for gender differences. Relationship of personal factors to modeling performance revealed. Especially, females´ interest in the task influences performance.