Longitudinal Comparative Study: Females’ vs. Males’ Graduation Outcomes in Undergraduate Engineering

Abstract

Increasing post-secondary enrolments, reducing university-drop-outs, while, simultaneously, boosting graduation-rates, is a worldwide-dilemma, currently challenging any-university and any-educational-system. One of the most-pressing-issues facing universities, however, is the number of students, who fail to graduate. The literature-survey on gender-differences in scholastic-performance indicates mixed-results. The outcome of ‘‘degrees awarded’’ is a commonly-used-indicator in assessing the efficacy and effectiveness of engineering-programs. This-study conducted a comparative-examination of undergraduate “degrees awarded” to females and males, for the period between 2003 and 2014, over five-undergraduate engineering-programs at School of Engineering (SOE), Moi University (MU). The analysis is based not only on graduation-numbers, but on deeper-differentiation in terms of six-types of graduation-outcomes (degree-classification). In addition, the study attempted to determine whether there are significant-gender- differences in graduation-types and rates, among undergraduate-students at SOE, MU. This-study also reviewed the individual-and institutional-level-factors, that jointly predict students’ likelihood of completing a bachelor’s degree in engineering. This-article is an account from a larger gender-related-study based on SOE, MU. Major-finding of the-study is that, female-undergraduate engineering-students performed as well as, and in some-instances, even better, than their-male-counterparts. The study recommended several-areas for further-research, as well as, specific-recommendations (departmental and school-level) as to how to increase graduation-rates.

Keywords: graduation rates, degrees awarded, females, undergraduate, engineering education.