SEFI Podcast Season 7 Episode 10 – Publication Spotlight Series: SEFI 2025 Best Research Paper: Evolving gender dynamics in teamwork experiences among female engineering students in PBL settings

Female students have long been underrepresented in engineering. However, the increasing use of project- and problem-based learning (PBL) approaches raises new questions regarding how power dynamics shape their lived experiences during collaborative teamwork. This episode features Sandra Ireri Cruz Moreno and Shannon Chance (Technological University Dublin). We talk about the winner of the ‘Best Research Paper’ at the SEFI 2025 Conference entitled “Evolving gender dynamics in teamwork experiences among female engineering students in PBL settings”.

How did the work come about

Sandra explains that whilst PBL offers significant benefits to engineering students, there is also research that highlights that there exist unintentionally exclusionary practices (e.g., stereotypical role assignment, uneven access to technical tasks, forms of marginalization) in team settings, this particularly affecting students from underrepresented backgrounds. However, most of the research considered experiences at a single moment in time and there was therefore a gap in understanding how the experiences of female engineering students change.

A summary of the paper

Sandra explains that the work takes a longitudinal approach to understand the evolving phenomenon and experiences of female undergraduate engineering during PBL collaborative learning, this including the challenges they face and the strategies that they develop. She explains that the paper contributes a conceptual framework that makes visible the systematic and the cultural inequities that are shaping teamwork practices.

The research questions

RQ1: How do power relations shape the teamwork experiences of diverse female students in PBL?

RQ2: How do diverse female engineering students experience teamwork in PBL environments, and how do these experiences evolve across their academic journeys?

Theoretical frameworks

Sandra describes the use of two different frameworks. Firstly, the Gender at Work analytical framework which examines power relationships embedded within institutions and communities, and which is structured around two intersecting directions (the individual- systemic spectrum and the informal-formal spectrum), which, when put together, form four interrelated quadrants (rules and policies, access to resources, social norms and deep structure, consciousness and capabilities).

Secondly, the intersectional approach whereby the domains of power are structural practices, cultural practices, disciplinary practices, and interpersonal practices. She describes previous work related to the analysis of these analytical frameworks to understand collaborative learning in engineering education (see Cruz Moreno & Chance, 2024)

The research approach

The research draws on Alfred Schutz’s social phenomenological approach which considers how the experience of an individual is related to social context. Sandra defines the concept of intersubjectivity, the shared reality that people construct together in a social setting which guide behaviour. For example, some research participants felt more comfortable with other female students because they understood how they would feel in the same position.

Data collection

Sandra describes two levels of analysis. The first one is the lived experiences of individual women in collaborative learning environments within engineering courses. The second is related to the gender biases that the students encountered in navigating these structures of power in a male-dominated field. She explains that the data set is comprised of 41 interviews with 22 female engineering students.

Data analysis

Sandra describes performing a chronological categorization of the students’ narratives, grouping them into three key stages related to background experiences, experiences during their engineering education, and the students’ plans. This allowed for understanding of the participants’ evolving perspectives.

She then describes using four analytics lenses defined using the two theoretical frameworks. The first lens is related to the structural aspects of engineering as a whole. These experiences reveal inequities in rules and policies that affect women’s access to foundational knowledge in engineering and which show us how stereotypes reinforce ideas of who is considered more capable, and typically favour the dominant groups in the field.

The second lens is related to support gaps and disciplinary practices whereby women students who lack engineering role models within their family often also lack informal networks to help them obtain engineering information and support, such as tutors or industry connections. These disadvantages may foster self-doubts about their capabilities when they are surrounded by peers with greater resources.

Another lens is called challenging gendered and cultural expectations in team dynamics. Here, findings revealed that participants often have concerns around gender-based exclusion, and the existence of an assumption that they lack technical competence compared to their male peers. Findings indicated that participants often felt judged regarding their contributions and roles in the teams, and the influence of stereotypes.

The final lens is the redefinition of identity as women students in engineering. This mainly focuses on interpersonal practices where gender expectations guide or reinforce interactions. This behaviour was found to evolve and change over time as participants became more confident and competent and developed a sense of belonging in the group and field.

Implications for practice

Sandra explains that the main implication of the work is that we need to move beyond the idea of individual resilience which places the burden on students from underrepresented backgrounds. She suggests that educators and institutions critically examine the power dynamics in curriculum design and classrooms and to check team formation and interactions.

She describes three key practices that could help reshape this participation of female students. In the early stages of teamwork educators could introduce practices such as assigning and rotating roles allowing students equitable opportunities to engage in technical and decision-making tasks. The second is to promote peer reflection and inclusive feedback so the students can reflect on group dynamics, exposing imbalances, burdens, and biases that might otherwise remain unacknowledged. Finally, educators should find ways of recognizing and valuing the invisible labour within teams, such as the organizational and emotional work that students do and that sustains group functioning.

Implications for research

Sandra identifies three main directions for future research. The first one relates to the development of theoretical and methodological approaches to capture students’ lived experiences within collaborating learning environments, so we can understand how knowledge is constructed, shared, and legitimized around peers in PBL settings. The second is to conduct more empirical research focused on the experiences of underrepresented students in collaborative settings, particularly longitudinal and cross-institutional studies. Finally, there is a need for research focused on social emotions in teamwork.

Follow this link to read the full paper.

Other resources

Cruz Moreno, S. I., & Chance, S. (2024). Exploring analytical frameworks to investigate power dynamics in collaborative learning in engineering education. Proceedings of the 52nd Annual Conference of SEFI, Lausanne, Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.14256915