Engineering Students' Beliefs About Research: Sex Differences, Personality, and Career Plans

Abstract

BackgroundUndergraduate research is a gateway to academic careers. Understanding student perceptions of research, and links to sex differences and personality, may shed light on the small proportion of women in undergraduate engineering programs and academia.Purpose (Hypothesis)How do personality variables and beliefs about research influence men and women's intentions to pursue a research‐related career in engineering? Specifically, we test the hypotheses that: (1) Thing Orientation will be a significant predictor of intention to pursue a research career in engineering, and will be a stronger predictor of research career intentions for women than men; (2) Engineering students' beliefs and expectations about the research enterprise and researchers themselves will be associated with their desire to pursue a research career; (3) Thing Orientation will influence students' beliefs and expectancies about research.Design/MethodUndergraduates majoring in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) fields from a large research‐intensive university in the USA (N = 544) reported perceptions and beliefs in a survey.ResultsSeven core beliefs about research and researchers emerge, two of which predicted interest in researchrelated careers. Thing Orientation influenced students' beliefs and expectancies about research and researchers, which in turn were related to intentions to pursue a research‐related career. Thing Orientation was a better predictor of intentions to pursue a research‐related engineering career for women than men.ConclusionsStudents' expectancies, beliefs, and Thing Orientation were predictors of planning research careers in engineering, especially for women. Future directions include understanding the malleability of research beliefs and Thing Orientation and applying it to intervention programs.