Persistence of African American Females in Engineering: The Identity Factor

Final Paper pdf 167KB

African American females remain underrepresented in engineering careers, earning only 1% of the bachelor’s degrees. While existing research examines African Americans’ persistence in engineering careers, limited empirical studies exist on the impact of identity on persistence for this group. This exploratory study examines the effect of social, professional, and ethnic identities to the persistence of African American women in undergraduate engineering programs. Additionally, the study compares African American and other females on ethnic, professional and social identity variables. Data was collected from a sample of female engineering students at an Historically Black University (HBU). A Multiple regression analyses was conducted to examine the effect of social, ethnic and professional identity on persistence of African American female engineering students. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) will be completed to examine effects of racial identity on social, group, and professional identity in African American female undergraduate engineering students.

Author(s):

Tonya McKoy    
Tennessee State University
Counseling Psychology Department
United States

Marie Hammond    
Tennessee State University
Psychology
United States

Catherine Armwood    
Tennessee State University
Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering
United States

S. Keith Hargrove    
Tennessee State University
United States