The Power of Mentorship: Women in Engineering Thrive with Women Peer Mentors.

Peer mentoring by women boosts retention rates for women in engineering.

Few women enter science and engineering fields, and while much effort has gone into increasing numbers, little research has been conducted on the effectiveness of peer-mentoring as a method of increasing retention rates for women in engineering.

A 2017 study by Tara Dennehey and Nilanjana Dasgupta tested to see if peer mentoring by senior students (specifically women vs men mentors) would be beneficial to first-year women engineering majors.

First-year women engineering students were divided into three groups. One third of the women received peer mentoring from senior women students. The other third received peer mentoring from senior students who were men, and the last group did not receive any peer mentoring. Mentoring lasted for a year, and mentees completed surveys periodically. The surveys measured the women’s feelings of belonging, anxiety, and motivation towards their program.

The outcomes were eye-opening. Those who received mentoring by women showed higher feelings of belonging and self-confidence than the other groups. These feelings remained stable throughout the year and the women reported that they felt more ‘challenged’ in their degree rather than ‘threatened’. These women were also more likely to complete their degree and consider graduate studies.

Women without mentors, and women with mentors who were men experiences a declining feeling of belonging and self-confidence throughout the year. They were less likely to continue pursuing an engineering degree than those with mentors who were women.

The results also showed that the women’s experiences were better predictors for retention than GPA.

The results thus identify same-gender peer mentoring as a simple and highly effective strategy to increase the representation of women in science and engineering.

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Study Details

Sample size(s): 150

Participants: Women majoring in engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Mean age was 18.34. Mentors were junior and senior engineering students.

Design: Experimental, Survey

Reference:

Dasgupta, N., Dennehy, T.C. (2017).Female peer mentors early in college increase womens positive academic experiences and retention in engineering. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 114(23), 5964–5969. doi:https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1613117114.

Summarized by WinSights team members: Razan Mohamed, Asal Eshghabadi, & Shohini Ghose