Proceedings of The 6th Global Conference on Women’s Studies
Year: 2024
DOI:
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Bridging the Gap: Fostering Confidence amongst Female Design Students within Higher Education
Pia McFindlay*, Ashton Margarete Moseley* and Oratile Mokgatla
ABSTRACT:
Women are significantly underrepresented in the Design industry globally, despite an increasing number of female design graduates. This is especially evident in tech-driven industries like Industrial Design. While countless studies attribute this issue to various factors, recent studies identify confidence, or a lack thereof, to be a major contributing aspect. Selfefficacy describes the assessment of one’s skills and competence and one’s ability to complete a task successfully, commonly linked to technical skills. Research suggests that female students tend to have significantly lower self-assessments compared to their male peers. This can often lead to limiting behaviours and act as a barrier to women pursuing opportunities in tech-based fields, further perpetuating the problem of gender disparity in Design and STEAM. This highlights both a need and opportunity for academic institutions to bridge this gap. To address this disparity, the Industrial Design department of the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, launched the “Wom+n in Tech” initiative. This experiential, interdisciplinary program aims to cultivate confidence among female design students by leveraging the technology, equipment, and expertise available within the faculty to host seminars, mentorship hubs, and practical workshops/training sessions in various tech-related areas. The goal is to encourage female students to engage and experiment with unfamiliar tools and technologies, which will develop competence and, ultimately, confidence in various skills. This paper presents a reflective Action Research study that evaluates the initial response to the initiative through qualitative reflections of students, mentors, and staff participating in the program.
keywords: Gender Gap, Confidence, Women in Tech, Transformative Learning