Exploring Women’s Teamwork Experiences In Engineering Education: A Phenomenological Analysis

Teamwork, project or problem based learning, and other collaborative learning strategies are often presented as approaches that benefit women and other minorities during their studies in Science and Engineering fields of education. This is based on the assumption that underrepresented groups will respond positively to the social integration and cooperation encouraged by these learning methods. However, research also shows that gendered stereotypical presuppositions about attributes and interests can influence the performance of team members and the tasks developed, potentially providing opportunities to sexism, racism, and other exclusionary social behaviours. In this context, this paper describes a piece of an on-going research project that examines the experiences of women studying engineering and the extent to which collaborative learning methods have supported their education. The study utilizes phenomenology as the primary methodological framework for data collection and analysis. The paper provides a description of the methodology employed, drawing on a subset of data from 22 college students who were interviewed. Insights gained from narratives on group work by women studying engineering at a university in Ireland offer valuable perspectives on their lived experiences, allowing for a reassessment of the effectiveness of certain collaborative learning practices. Furthermore, as phenomenological research has become increasingly popular in Engineering Education Research (EER), this paper contributes to the refinement of methodologies for EER scholarship.