Gender differences in student attitudes toward engineering and academic careers

Past research has attributed many reasons for the under-representation of women in engineering and academic careers which start from childhood and progress all the way to professional levels in adulthood. The focus of this research is on understanding barriers to further education experienced by female students in engineering in order to encourage them into postgraduate study and an academic career. A pilot study, an extensive survey of current students, both undergraduate and postgraduate, and focus group meetings were undertaken to identify the w ays female students at present feel supported in pursuing a civil engineering degree and the forms of further support that could be provided. The surveys sought answers on how best to address the obstacles that discourage women from pursuing and completing graduate degrees