Barriers to participation in engineering and the value of interventions to improve diversity

Despite considerable effort, there is still much to be done to improve girls' participation in [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] STEM education and careers. The Engineering for Australia Taskforce has appreciated the need to act based on four issues they have identified: (1) Engineering enrolments do not reflect the diversity of the Australian population, particularly gender diversity; (2) Engineering has a low visibility in schools (and in society generally); (3) Despite numerous outreach and engagement programs and initiatives, gender parity in undergraduate enrolments has not been achieved; and (4) Much of the engineering industry values diversity because it increases innovation and improves financial performance. The Taskforce contracted Education Futures to review the international research literature that not only focused on barriers to girls' participation in engineering, but more importantly focused on the value of interventions to improve diverse participation in engineering. The intention was to provide an evidence base for the Taskforce to select three actions that would influence the choices of young people (particularly females) to study engineering; and that actions would be scaled at a national, system level response.

The review of literature provides an opportunity to look at what has been attempted, what has worked and what needs to be attended to when looking for interventions to improve girls' participation in STEM. From this review of factors that influence girls' engagement in STEM, we have proposed a socio-ecological model of girls' engagement, which recognises that the individual learner exists in interaction with both her immediate learning community (teachers, peers, family, community, learning environments and tools), as well as broader contextual factors.

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