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  • Belonging Interrupted: Toward an Understanding of How Virtual Learning Impedes Women Students’ Belonging in Engineering

This content will become publicly available on May 11, 2025

Title: Belonging Interrupted: Toward an Understanding of How Virtual Learning Impedes Women Students’ Belonging in Engineering
Although the effects of COVID-19 were felt by all students, the pandemic exacerbated the barriers to belonging for women in engineering. Little work to date has investigated women’s experiences during the pandemic in disciplines that are hallmarked by masculinity. What scholarship has been completed on pandemic-necessitated virtual instruction has not examined how women’s experiences and sense of belonging differed by the college year in which this disruption in their learning environment occurred. Utilizing data from seven focus groups conducted in March 2022 with 22 students, this study investigates how pandemic-induced virtual instruction is related to sense of belonging for women within their engineering majors. We found not only that the disruption caused by the pandemic had differential outcomes for students, but that these differences were mainly related to the year in which pandemic-induced virtual instruction occurred. This study highlights the importance of focusing on belonging and related issues as women transition into their major. We offer implications and recommendations for practice and research based on the differential outcomes found.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2111513 2111114
PAR ID:
10541483
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ;
Publisher / Repository:
Springer
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Innovative Higher Education
ISSN:
0742-5627
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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