Proven Practices for Recruiting Women to STEM Careers in ATE-Funded Programs

This project, funded by the National Science Foundation through the ATE Program, is intended to advance knowledge on career theories, gender and ethnicity as they apply to understanding women’s academic and STEM career choices. In addition, the project will describe and document practices in use by ATE centers and projects for recruiting female students. Three types of information on recruitment practices are being collected: qualitative in-depth information from site visits; electronic data on recruitment practices of 275 ATE programs in operation during 2006-2007 and storage of these data in a database; and a follow-up survey with ATE Investigators to gather additional student recruitment information. Lastly, the project will combine information from literature reviews and other gender research projects with ATE data, and pull together a constellation of pragmatic practices for recruitment of females into educational programs that would prepare women to enter STEM careers. The intended outcome of the project is a comprehensive package of proven practices that others can use in their program design to improve STEM recruiting strategies for women and girls. In addition to project information, links to the Materials Ed resource center can be found here including curriculum modules and other relevant links and resources.