Gendered Experience of Engineering Knowledge in Military Technology Class

Background: The University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC) developed an undergraduate elective course (ENGR 3999), a novel curriculum innovation, to support veteran recruitment and retention. The course was designed to engage student veterans and other undergraduate students with hands-on military-based laboratory experiences. The class is available to all engineering students but mostly taken by Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Technology students. This study explores how male and female students evaluated the importance, relevance, and authenticity of knowledge presented by instructors and TAs in the course. Through social constructivist and standpoint feminist theories, we inspected gender differences, especially how female students in the course constructed positive meanings from their learning experiences while managing the tension between their care/responsibility-oriented moral stance and the combat-related course content. Method: Our study is an ethnographic study, a qualitative, naturalistic, and holistic inquiry method using multiple data collection methods and inductive analysis, and drawing cultural interpretations of a social phenomenon. Ethnographic research was a logical fit for our study, aiming to examine the cultural tension in female students' experiences in a traditionally male-dominated environment. This study is based on 131 undergraduate students (2015-2019), four veteran Teaching Assistants, and the course instructor. The research team conducted a thematic analysis and elicited preliminary findings summarized below. Results: Male and female students shared several predispositions that motivated them to enroll in the course, including interest in military-related topics, personal connections to the military, and desire to learn about employment opportunities. Male students' motivations reflected "an individual focus" (Severiens et al., 1998, p. 330), emphasizing their own learning processes and perspectives (e.g., I enjoy a military topic). However, female students' narratives exhibited a responsibility-orientation guided by relationships and a desire to minimize pain (Gilligan, 1982). All students recognized the value of gaining tangible knowledge of military technology through hands-on labs facilitated by Teaching Assistants with prior military experience. While both male and female students viewed their TAs as reliable sources of knowledge, each reached such conclusions differently. Male students viewed TAs with prior military experience as legitimate holders of knowledge based on their proximity to the reality of military technology. In contrast, female students emphasized the value of building relationships with their TAs and knowing the "personal side" of the technologies that added a sense of reciprocal caring and made the course content more meaningful (Baker & Leary, 1995). Conclusion: This study provides important insights into gender differences between male and female students' evaluation of legitimate engineering knowledge. Findings also illustrate how some engineering content knowledge can pose a dilemma to female students whose moral development promotes the ideals of caring and responsibility. This study also clarifies female students' active role to resolve the existing tension between their care/responsibility-oriented dispositions and combat-related course content by constructing relational connection/trust with their instructors. Ultimately, this study suggests that student learning is deeply interrelated to holistic development for emerging professionals who can make a meaningful connection with new knowledge.