Changing the face of engineering: Can photovoltaic engineering lead the charge?

The low recruitment and high attrition rate of women in engineering is well documented. Women account for only twenty percent of the entering class cohort, and drop out at a rate ten percent higher than their male counterparts.1 Although in the past twenty years women have made inroads into many fields that were male-dominated, women have made little or no progress in engineering. ¹ This paper has three goals. First, this paper will review existing literature that identifies current and alternative theories about why engineering programs do not retain female students. Second, this paper will synthesize motivational psychology research into a best-practice model for engineering programs. Last, we hypothesize that photovoltaic engineering programs are uniquely positioned to incorporate these recommendations. This material is based upon work primarily supported by the Engineering Research Center Program of the National Science Foundation and the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy of the Department of Energy under NSF Cooperative Agreement No. EEC-1041895. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the National Science Foundation or Department of Energy.