PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2018, Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services: Educational Studies

A persistent underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields in the United States has remained consistent for several years (Hill, Corbett, & St. Rose, 2010; Digest of Education Statistics, 2014). Undergraduate research experiences (UREs) have been repeatedly shown to lead to positive outcomes including interest in STEM, retention, preparation for graduate school, and increased personal and professional benefits for undergraduate students (Barnes, 2015; Zhan, 2014; Espinosa, 2011; Barlow & Villajero, 2004; Campbell & Skoog, 2004; Kardash, 2000; Maton & Hrabowski, 2000). However, accessible UREs specifically for women and women of color in STEM are rare. Therefore, research frameworks that involve women and women of color in STEM in the implementation of inclusive UREs are needed. PAR is a form of engaged, human inquiry that orients the researcher toward action-centered practice, focusing on reflection and collaboration with participants to bring about “meaningful change” in the context of social justice (Herr & Anderson, 2015; Chevalier & Buckles, 2013; Brydon-Miller & Maguire, 2008, p. 79). To ultimately inform program development at the university level, the current study applies PAR with women co-researchers in STEM as a research approach to explore the experience of women conducting/seeking STEM UREs. The study also includes a process evaluation of the co-researchers' experience with PAR.

Committee: Lisa Vaughn Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Emily Houh J.D. (Committee Member); Farrah Jacquez Ph.D. (Committee Member); Nancy Rogers Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Education

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2012, Management

Women remain underrepresented in the engineering profession comprising only 10% of the employed engineers in 2010 while in that same year women exceeded more than half of those employed in professional, managerial and related occupations according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. While others studies have identified the reasons women leave engineering, this study focuses on women who persist in the profession. A complex, three stage mixed methods study has been conducted. The first stage was a qualitative research study based on semi-structured interviews with 31 women engineers, ten of whom had left an engineering career and 21 persisting for on average 21 years leading to a conceptual model and the development of a new construct to measure the ideal self. Next, a field experiment was conducted which surveyed 495 women ages 21 to 70 with engineering degrees. A structural equation model has been developed showing that women's commitment to an engineering career is impacted by their levels of self efficacy, the interaction of age and number of children, and their ability to articulate a personal vision as operationalized by the ideal self. A woman's relationship with her manager and level of work engagement also impact career commitment. The final stage of this research compared the factors and relationships important to a woman's career commitment to engineering to a sample of 138 male engineers. Findings show that the factors important to persistence for women engineers have little or no impact on a man's commitment to an engineering career. Women engineers have lower levels of self efficacy than men, and for men self efficacy has no statistically significant relationship to career commitment to engineering. Further both the relationship with the manager, one's ideal self, and work engagement influence a woman's career commitment to engineering more than for a man. A conceptual model adapted from the intentional change theory (Boyatzis, 2008) is presented tha (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Richard Boyatzis PhD (Committee Chair); Diana Bilimoria PhD (Committee Member); Toni Somers PhD (Committee Member); Gary Wnek PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Engineering; Management

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2023, Leadership Studies

Women are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) in higher education institutions and the technology field and vulnerable to attrition. The reviewed literature suggests that the impact of other factors, beyond students' academic performance, leading to well-being and success and affecting female students' retention and persistence, needs attention. Moreover, opportunities for students to learn from one another, develop relationships, and build a sense of community should be investigated. The present study illuminates the experiences of a sense of belonging for female CS students who participated in CODE4her™ CS Mentorship Program for Girls (CODE4her). The embedded single-case approach bounded this phenomenological study. The participants were mentors in CODE4her between 2017 and 2022. The purposefully selected alumnae (n = 7) and current students (n = 5) recollected and described their lived experiences as mentors and CS students and how these experiences shaped their sense of belonging. Data were collected through semi-structured in-depth phenomenological and focus group interviews and an anonymous survey. Data analysis was performed in NVivo following the Modified van Kaam Method. The data analysis revealed that female CS students continue to perceive themselves as not belonging initially. Participating in CODE4her promoted feeling valued, respected, and part of a community. Mentors participated actively and assumed responsibility for their mentoring triads while practicing various skills. They felt supported by other women as they shared experiences, networked, and forged friendships. Students appreciated the program's mission and felt proud of being able to introduce CS to girls and make an impact on them. Mentors perceived that the program provided membership in a community that increased their confidence and a sense of belonging. The lack of a sense of belonging for female students in CS is a complex and significant problem with (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Kristina LaVenia Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Patrick Pauken J.D., Ph.D. (Committee Member); Vipa Phuntumart Ph.D. (Other); Rebecca Bates Ph.D. (Committee Member); Christy Galletta Horner Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Computer Science; Higher Education

Doctor of Education, Ashland University, 2023, College of Education

African American females are underrepresented in STEM fields of studies and professions throughout the United States of America. This phenomenological study aims to understand the lived experiences of African American females persisting in post-secondary STEM education and STEM professions. Bronfenbrenner's (1979) Ecological Systems Theory served as the theoretical framework for this study. In addition, critical Race Theory was used as a filter to understand the challenges African American females face in STEM. The sample size for the research was seven African American females with STEM degrees working in STEM fields in the United States and abroad. In the data collection, the researcher employed a semi-structured interview. The researcher used the NVivo 12 software to systematically code, sort, identify themes and patterns, develop categories, and provide the report. Ten major themes emerged for this study: familial experiences, self-concept/STEM identity experiences, societal experiences, internal influences, familial influences, cultural influences, personal changes, cultural changes, connections to the community, and materialized support. The researcher maintained the privacy and confidentiality of all participants throughout the study. The researcher used pseudonyms and a secure password to preserve privacy and confidentiality. The findings from this study may contribute to the body of knowledge regarding African American females' persistence in STEM education and professions. Additionally, this research provided data to support the perceived barriers, challenges and influences African American females encountered in the STEM field of studies and occupations with the sources of influence of their STEM persistence.

Committee: Judy Alston Ph.D. (Committee Chair) Subjects: African American Studies; African Americans; Black Studies

PHD, Kent State University, 2021, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Foundations, Leadership and Administration

The purpose of this exploratory qualitative study was to gain a better understanding and provide a description of the experiences of a group of foreign-born, foreign-educated (FBFD) faculty women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematical Sciences (STEM) disciplines at research intensive institutions of higher education (R1 and R2) in the U.S. More specifically, this study focused on FBFD faculty women in STEM who were raised with a Confucianist philosophy. The experiences that were focused on in this study were those experiences related to (a) the transitions to new cultural environments and (b) career navigation and career progression as a faculty member within an academic setting when cultural differences may affect career success and (c) the intent to remain in academe in a STEM career at the participant's current institution. The theoretical framework that guided the research was Schlossberg's Transition Theory. Additionally, the Life Experiences and Role Negotiations (LEARN) Model influenced this study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and analyzed. Findings showed that within this group, there were common sources of support and strategies used to effectively navigate the academic career path while adjusting to several different cultural contexts. Analysis also revealed reasons why faculty women in this demographic choose to remain in their STEM faculty roles. Recommendations for future research as well as recommendations for policy and practice are discussed.

Committee: Martha Merrill Ph.D. (Committee Chair) Subjects: Higher Education Administration

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2020, Experimental Psychology (Arts and Sciences)

Interventions designed to increase women's participation in STEM sometimes emphasize the lack of women in these fields. We hypothesized that interventions drawing attention to women's minority status in STEM may increase unwanted feelings of distinctiveness in women and subjective feelings of tokenism, thereby lowering their identification with and interest in STEM. Across two studies, women viewed STEM recruitment presentations that varied in the degree to which they emphasized women's minority status in STEM and/or the framing of such messages. In Study 1, participants who viewed a presentation with the highest emphasis on women's underrepresentation in STEM reported higher feelings of unwanted distinctiveness and higher subjective feelings of tokenism relative to participants who viewed presentations with less emphasis on women's underrepresentation. Further, the indirect effect of presentation type on self-reported interest in STEM was mediated by feelings of unwanted distinctiveness. In Study 2, this same mediation pattern held when the impact of trait-level gender identity centrality was taken into account as a moderator. Implications for designing STEM interventions, particularly in ways that minimize the risk of increasing unwanted feelings of distinctiveness, are discussed.

Committee: Kimberly Rios Dr. (Advisor); Keith Markman Dr. (Committee Member); Mark Alicke Dr. (Committee Member); Lindsay Dhanani Dr. (Committee Member); Frances Wymbs Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Experimental Psychology; Social Psychology

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2020, Educational Studies

This study assessed the Aspiration for Women's Advancement and Retention in Engineering and Science (AWARES) mentorship program designed for female undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students on the cusp of transitioning to the workforce. Thirty student mentees and 33 mentors were included in this study. Data were collected via a single-timepoint survey assessing participants' career self-efficacy and suggestions for program improvement. Results revealed that mentees who participated in this program had high levels of self-efficacy for career-related interpersonal skills, and mentors had similarly high levels of self-efficacy for the mentoring role. Assessment of the program structure revealed that mentors and mentees valued the bi-weekly in-person meetings, curriculum topics, and the yearlong length of the program. Overall, findings suggest that mentorship may be one effective method to equip young women with the self-efficacy needed to manage the barriers that can exist for underrepresented individuals as they transition to STEM careers.

Committee: Shirley Yu PhD (Advisor); Gonul Kaletunc PhD (Committee Member); Michael Glassman PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Educational Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2020, Counseling Psychology

Significant effort has been dedicated to increasing the representation of women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. While women's representation in many of these fields has grown, women remain under-represented in Engineering and Computing Science. Much of the available research on this topic has been dedicated to getting more women into the STEM "pipeline," and has focused on STEM disciplines as homogenous. The research that has focused on women who are already in the field is primarily qualitative and has been conducted from a qualitative perspective. Further, this research has not had an exclusive, quantitative focus on women of color, or any one racial/ethnic group of women. The current study was undertaken in order to address this gap, to better understand the experiences of African American women in the fields of computing science and engineering, to replicate available data in a quantitative manner, and to examine this problem from a counseling psychology perspective. A sample of 197 African American women working in computing science or engineering completed several self-report measures examining their experiences of sexism and racial microaggressions, as well as their career self-efficacy, career outcome expectations, and symptoms of stress. Data were analyzed from a Critical Race Quantitative Intersectionality perspective, with multiple regression analyses and conditional processes analyses being conducted to examine the relationships between these constructs. Supporting the predicted hypothesis, the interaction of sexist and racially microaggressive experiences (examined via a moderation analysis) significantly predicted a percentage of the variance in career self-efficacy and career outcome expectations above and beyond either experience on its own. The interaction of sexist and racially microaggressive experiences, when moderated by sexist experiences in a vocational setting (examined using a moderated moderation analysis (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Ronald Levant Ed. D. (Advisor); Ingrid Weigold Ph. D. (Committee Co-Chair); Harvey Sterns Ph. D. (Committee Member); Mary Triece Ph. D. (Committee Member); Philathia Bolton Ph. D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Counseling Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2019, Higher Education (Education)

This study is an examination of the inter-sector career mobility of women who earn STEM doctorate degrees from U.S. higher-education institutions, using data from the national Survey of Doctorate Recipients. The findings indicate that cumulative-hazard estimates for changing employment sectors increased more rapidly for women than for men overall, but among those who started their employment in Education (for this study, restricted to higher education), rates by gender were equal. Complementary log-log regression analysis of all respondents indicated that women were significantly more likely than men to change employment sectors, as were respondents whose first employment was not in Education. Significant differences in likelihood were also found between disciplines. Marital status did not have a significant effect. Women with children living at home were significantly more likely to change sectors overall, except women starting in Education.

Committee: Lijing Yang PhD (Committee Chair); Laura Harrison PhD (Committee Member); David Nguyen PhD (Committee Member); Burnier DeLysa PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Higher Education

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2018, Psychology

Temporal distancing, the act of thinking about events or experiences from a broader time perspective, has been shown to improve well-being through reduced distress and avoidance as well as increased positive affect (Bruehlman-Senecal & Ayduk, 2015). The effect of temporal distancing on reduced avoidance suggests that it may be a useful strategy to adopt for goal pursuit, especially for students at risk for attrition (e.g., women in STEM). Participants were asked to identify a stressor and randomly assigned to detail the impact of it on their lives in either the near or distant future. Thinking about their stressor from the distant future increased major commitment only for women in STEM as revealed by post hoc contrasts. For these participants, the distant future perspective increased a focus on the transience of the stressor/stress reaction (impermanence) and their reasons for pursuing a degree in their major (purpose). However, purpose emerged as a unique mechanism through which temporal distancing affects major commitment for female STEM majors.

Committee: Amanda Diekman PhD (Advisor); Heather Claypool PhD (Committee Member); Jonathan Kunstman PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Social Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Wright State University, 2016, Human Factors and Industrial/Organizational Psychology PhD

The effect of implicit bias on discriminatory grading in education has received considerable attention but, to date, no study has examined the effectiveness of using a rubric to reduce biased grading. Current research has demonstrated that the presence of a gender-normative name is sufficient to activate implicit gender bias, which can result in disparate treatment. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of implicit and explicit gender bias on grading decisions for written assignments. When grading identical essays on the topic of computers (stereotypically-male), participants assigned significantly lower grades when the essay was supposedly written by a female author, compared to a male author. This difference was more pronounced in participants who had a stronger implicit association of men with science (high implicit bias). Male and female author grades did not differ when assigned by participants who were low in implicit bias. Further, participants who were high in implicit bias, but reported low explicit prejudice toward women in STEM graded the female author more harshly than the male author. This study also investigated the effectiveness of using a rubric to decrease bias effects on grading. Unexpectedly, use of the rubric enhanced the effect of implicit bias on grading when the author gender and essay topic were stereotype-inconsistent (i.e. female computer author). It is possible that rubric use further depleted cognitive resources already limited by dissonant implicit and explicit attitudes. While rubrics might increase the perception of objectivity, they might also inadvertently serve to amplify the effect of implicit gender bias when the topic being graded is strongly-gender normative.

Committee: Tamera Schneider Ph.D. (Advisor); Kevin Bennett Ph.D. (Committee Member); Gary Burns Ph.D. (Committee Member); Martin Gooden Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Educational Evaluation; Educational Psychology; Gender Studies; Psychology; Social Psychology; Social Research; Womens Studies

MA, University of Cincinnati, 2013, Arts and Sciences: Psychology

Interventions designed to address the negative effects of stereotypes can be used to create identity-safe environments and promote attitude change among stigmatized populations. Research suggests that stigmatized individuals are sensitive to the type of stereotype priming, and the salience of stereotypes has important consequences for performance. However, stereotype threat interventions vary in the extent to which stereotypes are made explicit. The current study extends research on stereotype threat interventions to STEM women in professional development settings, and examines the effects of implicit and explicit stereotype activation on leadership aspirations. STEM women graduate students participating in leadership workshops were assigned to an experimental group exposed to gender stereotypes, or a control group with no such exposure. Pre- and post-test measures indicated that cuing stereotypes in an identity-safe environment was not sufficient to reduce graduate women's stereotype threat effects and may diminish motivation to lead. Qualitative data was analyzed for career challenges and strategies. The effect of openly discussing stereotypes on provoking negative consequences for well-being is discussed.

Committee: Rachel Kallen Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Stacie Furst Ph.D. (Committee Member); Steven Howe Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

Master of Science (MS), Wright State University, 2011, Human Factors and Industrial/Organizational Psychology MS

This study used two implicit attitude measures (a Go/No-Go Association Task; GNAT and a personalized GNAT; PGNAT) and three explicit measures to assess attitude change in faculty attending a diversity training session on women in STEM. It was hypothesized that (1) pre- and post-training explicit scores would correlate more strongly with the PGNAT than with the GNAT, (2) training would result in more positive attitudes toward women in STEM, and (3) difference scores would be greatest in the explicit scales, followed by the GNAT and PGNAT. Partial support was found for a stronger correlation between the PGNAT and explicit scores, and the PGNAT revealed more positive implicit attitudes following training. However, explicit scores did not change significantly, and the GNAT and PGNAT change scores did not differ from one another. This study adds support for use of a personalized GNAT and provides evidence that diversity training can positively affect personal attitudes.

Committee: Tamera Schneider PhD (Committee Chair); Gary Burns PhD (Committee Member); Peggy DesAutels PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology; Social Psychology; Sociology; Womens Studies