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Recruiting more U.S. women into engineering based on stories from Morocco: a qualitative study

The objective of this project is to examine the differences between Moroccan and American students with regards to the cultural influences that led them to pursue an engineering degree. Annually since 2015, a partnership between a university in Morocco and MSU allows senior engineering Moroccan students to study at MSU to obtain their graduate degree in aerospace or mechanical engineering. The roughly equal gender representation in most Moroccan cohorts prompted our research question: “How do students from Morocco and the United States describe the cultural reasons that factored into their choice to pursue an engineering degree?” This exploratory qualitative study is guided by the combined frameworks of Hofstede’s Cultural Dimension (HCD) and Expectancy-Value Theory (EVT). The influence of expectancy, family/social structure, and value are evaluated using EVT and cultural factors are evaluated through HCD. We conducted two phases of semi-structured interviews with senior and graduate Moroccan and American students. This study resulted in the modification of the EVT model to include the three constructs of Collectivism, Religion, and Power Distance Index. It also revealed how EVT’s task values manifest differently across cultures. Results indicate that cultural differences manifest primarily through the “Collectivist” mentality among Moroccans, explaining the gender participation difference between Moroccan and American engineering students.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:MSSTATE/oai:scholarsjunction.msstate.edu:td-6705
Date09 December 2022
CreatorsSassi, Soundouss
PublisherScholars Junction
Source SetsMississippi State University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceTheses and Dissertations

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