Gender differences in engineering students’ understanding of professional competences and career development in the transition from education to work

Gender studies constitute an important part of engineering education research. Although great efforts have been made over recent decades, there is still a gender imbalance in the field of engineering across most regions of the world. Gender balance in engineering has been on the agenda, arising from the need to increase diversity in the workforce and train more qualified engineers. For a further understanding of gender differences at different stages of professional development, based on a longitudinal survey, this study explored both women’s and men’s understanding of engineering work and the priorities they assign to the impact factors for career development, both at graduation and after one year of work. In this study, women were reported to give more attention to environmental impacts and social responsibility in engineering work than men, while men tended to assign higher importance to math, science, and technical skills. Suggestions are proposed and discussed to improve the learning experience of both female and male students and to optimize future course design.