Role conflict and engineering career choice

Although many factors influence career goals, recent research in women's career development have focused on issues such as gender role attitudes, family issues, multiple role conflict, and the effects of support and barriers (Hackett 1997). In this study, senior engineering students were given surveys designed to measure their self-concept of actual self, ideal self, and a generic engineer (career self). The 50 adjectives female engineering students used to describe actual self, ideal self, and career self were compared with their male engineering counterparts and female education students. These descriptors were split into the following four categories: 1) self-confident/ goal-directed 2) emotional/ positive attitude 3) creative /unconventional and 4) sociable/outgoing. Significant differences were found for both sets of comparisons, especially in the emotional and sociable categories. In addition to the quantitative data, students were asked to explore what a standard working day might be like for them in the future. These answers were then analyzed using qualitative research techniques. Both quantitative and qualitative data indicate that female engineering students appear to be stuck in the middle of trying to balance personal needs or goals with professional ones. This study suggests that role conflict may create more problems for women who enter a non-traditional field such as engineering.