Acquiring the Taste for Careers in High-Tech Industries Yael Rom Idorom - Science & Technology, ltd. Haifa, Israel , January 1998 A Paper Presented at the European GASAT Conference January 5th to 8th, ‏1998

Abstract Historical Background Principles of the Na'ale Program Objectives of NAP Shaping Career Choice The 9th Grade Seminar "Applications of Science and Technology" Evaluation and Summation Reports Discussion of Results Where do We Go From Here APPENDIX 1 APPENDIX 2 APPENDIX 3

Abstract For the past 12 years we have been involved in the development and the implementation of intervention programs for the promoting of more women towards careers in engineering. The intervention programs dealt with analyzing career choice patterns, identifying potential candidates and then fostering them to a point where their manifest achievements in advanced mathematics & physics would qualify them for admission to engineering. Beside upgrading maths' & physics we tried to shape career choices and used role models, visited engineering sites and industries and led discussion groups on juggling careers and families. Job opportunities in the high-tech industries in Israel are fantastic: the quest for engineering graduates is on the national agenda - Israel needs 10,000 by year 2000 - and head hunters and companies are on the lookout for engineers. Young men are rushing into the engineering schools, giving electrical engineering and computer science top priority; young women have stayed mostly with the traditional faculties, with high achievers preferring life sciences and law. The rate of participation of women in almost all engineering faculties has mostly stayed bellow 8% as compared to over 50% in medical schools and law schools, (despite the hard competition - about 6:1, acceptance ratio). Why don't they rush into engineering? What more could and should we do to get them interested? The paper will describe and discuss work done during a year long 9th grade seminar defined as "Applications of Science and Technology". Close to 400 pupils participated in the seminar, they heard introductory lectures, chose subjects for research, conducted research in teams of 3-4 each, wrote a paper and presented it in class and in an exhibition hall. Each team received credit and a special grade in the end-of-the-year report card. The seminar proved to be extremely successful and has been running now for 3 years, with similar results and evaluations, and has become part of the curriculum.

1. Historical Background The Na'ale program (NAP) was designed by Yael Rom in 1987 as a way to increase the rates of participation of highschool girls in science majors, to be followed by careers in Engineering and the Physical Science. Na'ale is the Hebrew acronym for "Girls to Engineering". NAP has earned the recognition and financial support of the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sport, and has been on the list of recommended projects since 1992. The achievements of NAP have been reported in conferences in Israel and abroad, as well as in professional journals and Anthologies on Women Studies published in Israel (in Hebrew).

2. Principles of the Na'ale Program NAP is characterized in that it interacts among pupils, parents and teachers. The overall perception, the center of activity, the growth processes and professional evolvement of the female and male pupils from junior high school until choosing an academic and/or post highschool profession can be seen by means of the flow chart (app.1.1). In each of the crossroads the role partners go through the processes of decision making and/or routing as described in the flowchart. In each of these, as described in the flow: gathering information - analyzing It - cutting down the choices and making one choice. The connection between the tracks of study in secondary schools and the future choice of a profession and the crossroads from the point of view of the system which channels them, can be seen in the next flow chart (app.1.2).

3. Objectives of NAP Education in Israel is mostly co-educational. In the last ten years we had an organizational change: most of highschools have a 3 years' junior highschool followed by a 3 years' senior highschool, usually sharing one campus. Registration to a specific junior high is mandatory and organized by the municipal department of education. More leeway is granted when registrating to senior highschools to enable opting for specialised tracks: advanced science, technology, arts, music. Objectives of NAP have been designed accordingly: For the junior highschools - to increase the numbers of female as well as male pupils who will choose to study advanced maths' and science in order to qualify for acceptance to the science tracks in senior highschools. For the senior highschools - to increase the numbers of female/male pupils who will graduate in advanced levels of maths' & science and will plan careers in engineering and science.

4. Shaping Career Choice When we first started with NAP we assumed, like most of our colleagues all over the world, that the scarcity of women engineers was due mainly to their scarcity in Advanced Math's and Physics - the pre-requisites for admission. Prof' LE BOLD of Purdue University suggested that scarcity of participation in highschool computer courses deterred women from applying to engineering! He proved though that they could and did succeed in first year computer courses despite lack of former experience. Planing intervention programs for promoting women in engineering emphasized Advance Mathematics in the highschools. As work progressed the search was to identify life experiences that were typically male and which could - we thought - explain why boys were more inclined to prefer engineering than girls. Once identified. we were trying to copy these experiences for girls and work progressed mostly in two directions: Planning Careers Through Watching Role Models (1) Exposing female pupils to role models - young engineering students and/or mature engineers and scientists. The ideology and the reasoning were that young pupils are impressionable and tend to shape their decisions through copying careers of pupil with whom they can identify easily, similar to themselves in many ways, where they can say "if she can do it - so will I". Those of us who have implemented such programs can point out successes, describe exemplary case studies, publish academic articles documenting our findings. Regretfully, we do not have enough longitudinal studies to prove that growth of participation rates in engineering, which in the U.S. reached 16-17% and stopped there, was due to role modeling as had been operated. (2) Exposing female pupils to the engineering work environment and life style. In NAP, we have taken female/male pupils to visit industrial workplaces, see and sense the environment where they will spend most of their adult life working for a living. In some of these paces, if we were lucky/or influential we would have them meet with a group of leaders of industry (female or male) who could share with the young pupils the challenge and the beauty of the engineering profession, the satisfaction of "doing it". Acquiring the Taste for Engineering Through "Hands - On Programs" (1) Exposing young female pupils to experimentation with mechanical work - the Nuts and Bolts Approach - reasoning that by "actually doing it" with their own hands it will imbibe them with the passion to continue "doing it" and then choose engineering as a career. The "hands on" programs for girls has been first rationalized and later devised in order to give girls a chance at "puttering with mechanics". The reasoning was that since puttering with technology was perceived to be conducive to careers in engineering "girls should putter too". Enthusiastic reports of many "hands on" programs have been widely published, in many countries, but have they really mad a significant difference? Have there been longitudinal follow-up studies that can prove that sharing in "a hands on" program shaped career choices in engineering? In Israel, about 10 years ago, curricular programs for girls in mechanical training projects were run in all junior highschools, as part of an effort fequity in education. An evaluation follow-up report to the department of vocational training in the Ministry of Education summarized that these courses/workshops did not influence the girls or tboys to choose technology in senior high! Aquiring the Taste for Engineering through intellectual Inquiry The need to find alternate venues to start female pupils to become interested in planning careers in engineering was recognized already in 1987, when NAP was designed. Recognizing that the "hands on" approach was not accomplishing what we expected, we decided to design a course for 10th grade physics' pupils that will be especially attractive to female pupils: enabling them to study what engineering is all about by taking them from scientific phenomenae through basic and applied research to the final product sold on the market to consumers, and other industries. The 1st course was designed in 1989 as an addendum for 10th grade physics' but was implemented for the first time in 1993 in the Hadera Academic Highschool, in 1995 at the Kyriat Chaim Highschool in Haifa, in 1996 in Arab Highschools in Galilee. The assumptions underlying the design of the course were: (1) To give the female pupils an opportunity to study something new on their on, utilizing abilities they enjoy, accomplishing that in a friendly and supportive environment through working as a team. (2) To enable them to find out that they can do extremely well on their own - study & understand & present a written article and a verbal lecture on a topic in science and technology very far removed from their daily class work. We assumed that they might "acquire" the taste for science and technology". (3) To enable them to discover first hand a whole new vista of join opportunities in high -tech industries: interesting, challenging, ecologically clean, paying well, as well as allowing flexible working hours and in many cases work from home. (4) Formative and summation evaluation were an integral part of our work: evaluation questionnaires and interviews were held with pupils as well as with teachers and parents in each of the schools. One of our very first conclusions was that running the course in the 10th grade was too late for those schools where placements in advanced Math & Physics were made at the end of the 9th grade! Therefore, if we wanted to influence pupils' choices we had to built up their interests before these placements were taken - i.e. in the 9th grade. A second decision necessarily followed: since 9th grade curriculum held 6 weekly hours in "Science and Technology" and most of the teachers were not Physics teachers - the research projects topics had to be adjusted and a few extra project instructors from the senior highschool had to be hired. The 9th grade "Applications of Science & Technology" course proved to be a tremendous success in attraction Junior highschool graduates to sign up for advanced Science & Technology Classes in the 10th grade. Registration for advanced Maths' was already part of the NAP program, and 47% of the 9th grade pupils were qualified and accepted: the combination of advanced Maths' & Physical Siences was accomplisd. The program is running in 1998 for the 3rd consecutive year and has become part of the curriculum in the AMAL Hadera highschool.

5. The 9th Grade Seminar "Applications of Science and Technology" The structure of and the methodology of both the 10th grade and the 9th grade courses were very similar, but they differed in two areas : the research projects offered and the numbers of pupils involved. 8 weeks were devoted to introductory lectures In the 10th grade introductory lectures were given by the physics teachers on 4 subjects, where each school chose the four most suitable for the pupils or the teachers out of a list suggested to them: energy of different sources, radiation, ecology. aeronautics, space, astrophysics, the solar system. In most schools we had 2-3 classes, all togther no more then 80 pupils in a school and all of them were in advanced mathematics' classes (4-5 units). In the 9th grade , introductory lectures were given by a large number of science and technology teachers, 9 classes were involved, all togther about 380 pupils and only 55% were evaluated as future advanced maths' highschool pupils. 8 to 10 weeks were devoted to research: pupils were asked to choose team members and a team leader. Each team chose a subject for a research project out of a list presented by the teachers and tutored by the project leaders. The team was tutored in its research work and then wrote a paper of 25-30 pages long, sometimes accompanied by a computer presentation. Special tutoring was offered in the methodology of writing a reaserch paper: one session was on how to read, summerise, write notes and annotations. one session was devoted to "weeding out" axcess materials, writing and editing. one session was devoted to learen how to prepare a 30 minute lecture. Each team presented the paper in class. Each team received a team grade and a special notation in their yearly report-card. At the end of the 9th grade, we had an exhibition of all the projects. Parents and pupils of the 9th grade as well as the 8th grade pupils, were invited to see and admire (app. 5 pictures and slides).

6. Evaluation and Summation Reports Formative evaluations were, as mentioned, part and parcel of the everyday work. The principals in charge of the 3 highschools were very much involved and each 8 weeks we had special evaluation sessions. Towards the end of the seminar we ran a very detailed questionnaire, all the pupils answered but were not asked to write their names. Questions were in the following areas: General data: Grades in the 4 science subjects studied in the 9th grade; which science majors the pupil would wish to study in the 10th grade; did participation in the seminar influence the choice of majors. Data about research project. How much time was invested in the various stages; how did they choose their team members and team leader; how did they choose the research project a variety of questions about team work - how they coped ? settled disputes? divided work loads? Evaluation of the Seminar Many questions about the organization of the seminar, introductory lectures, tutoring, availability of bibliography, insights into job opportunities in science and technology, meeting role models. Recommendations and suggestions We asked the pupils to help us by suggesting a variety of improvements both in name, scope, list of projects, etc. and would they recommend that we should run more of the same in the 9th or 10th or 11th grades.

7. Discussion of Results Results and evaluation of the seminars were defferent in the 10th and the 9th grades. In the 10th grade, about half the pupils decided to continue with life sciences: physics seemed too difficult and the fact that only those who pass the prerequisites for 5 units of math could continue with physics helped them make the decision. In the 9th grade almost all the pupils were very happy and satisfied with the seminar, including pupils who were not strong in mathematics. The fact that all pupils managed to finish their projects, and chose subjects where they could manage well (according to their ability) spoke a lot for the extraordinary contributions of the school's leadership, especially the Seminar Leader (a young Biology teacher) and the principals of the 6 - year highschool who gave us both all the support we needed along each step of the way. The other benefits have also been evaluated and accounted for: More interest in Science and Technology - 47% registered in science classes in the 10th grade. We know that more wanted to but their Maths' grades failed them. Better verbal ability through more reading and writing and verbal presentation,. Most of the projects received high grades both for the research and the written an verbal presentations. Team study and work with peers, not controlled by adults, made a significant difference in future behavamong peers. We think that team -work culture prepares well fot future work in Engineering and in R&D at large. More assurance and independence among pupils who used to rely on parents' help. Parents kept mentioning that "the young girls" were doing it all on their own, within their teams, and doing we. Positive self concept, especially among less popular and more timid pupils.

8. Where do We Go From Here During the 3rd term, when the pupils start presenting their projects, special counseling is taking place, where each class (pupils and parents) meets with the counselor and the school principal of the senior highschool to discuss the various school tracks offered and the pupils' vocational tendencies and abilities. Drawing on the experience of the pupils in writing the research projects they can discuss better the different possibilities of science and technology tracks, and as a result a much larger number of pupils registered for these. Many more girls and their parents tend to say : "Science and Technology are no myth ...we know ...we have tasted it". In other schools? We are writing up a model for the 9th grade so it can be disseminated in many more schools. We found out that the efforts needed by the teachers in each separate school that starts a Seminar may undermine its success if they do not have wise and knowledgable leadership. The more covenient and better known the program the better the services it can extend to the pupils.

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