This work shows the results obtained in the execution of a group of workshops oriented to the attraction of women to the STEM branches in the context of the European project W-STEM, which has the objective of establishing mechanisms and strategies that influence in the policies of gender equality, focusing mainly in the attraction, access, and orientation of women in the STEM careers offered in Latin American universities. The strategy adopted for the definition of the action plan for gender equality in STEM careers by the Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (UTPL), initially due to the project and a view of its long-term sustainability, is based on co-creation. In particular, a co-creation approach has been applied to diagnose the situation with the same students and, on the other hand, to design more inclusive and collaborative workshops and bootcamps that allow students to know the STEM areas through collaboration, experimentation, and application to the resolution of real problems of their environment posed in the format of challenges.
Women are one of the least represented groups in science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics (STEM) [
In Latin America, there is a high proportion of women in higher education;
however, the areas to which they have access mostly correspond to social sciences,
health sciences, economics, and administration; but they are a minority in the STEM
areas. Besides, women's participation rates in science and engineering courses are
substantially lower than those of men. There is a reduction in the gender gap in STEM
[
In this context, the W-STEM project [
The main focus during the second year of the project is to work on the mechanisms and strategies of attraction in Latin American universities through three phases: (1) identification of schools; (2) identification of students with key aptitudes and skills, related to STEM disciplines, in the previously identified schools; and (3) implementation of the attraction campaigns. In particular, the UTPL has formed a local node with schools in the Loja city in which the project activities will be developed. A co-creation workshop of bootcamps has been carried out among the activities developed, with a double objective. Firstly, to make a diagnosis of young people's perception regarding STEM careers in the context of Loja, as a first step to identify women with interest in STEM areas to address the second phase of the attraction mechanisms. Secondly, to involve young people in the co-creation of action plans to develop bootcamps focused on encouraging and strengthening STEM vocations.
The present work describes the workshop of perception diagnosis developed at the UTPL, as well as the main results obtained so that the experience can be replicated in other institutions.
The work has been organized into five sections. The second section presents the W-STEM project in which this work is framed. The third section provides an overview of the activity developed in the context of International Women's Day with pre-university students. The fourth section describes the workshop and the main results of the participants' perception of STEM careers. The fifth section then describes the process of co-creation of the bootcamps. Finally, the last section concludes the work with its most significant contributions. 2
This initiative has been developed as part of the European project "Building the future of Latin America: engaging women into STEM (W-STEM)." This project arises from the need to build a joint strategy between Latin America and the European Union to attract young women to STEM programs through access and democratization of higher education. Despite the large number of initiatives focused on reducing the gender gap in the Latin American context, most of these initiatives are disjointed at the university level.
This project aims to establish mechanisms and strategies that affect gender equality
policies, focusing mainly on attracting, accessing and orienting women to the STEM
degrees offered in Latin American universities, emphasizing the countries involved in
the project [
A consortium has been created between universities in the European Union and Latin America that contribute different experiences to build a "joint strategy at the university level for STEM programs" composed of fifteen partners plus the significant presence of UNESCO and the participation of the Columbus Association as external evaluator; Table 1 summarizes the main aspects of the project.
• University of the North - UNINORTE (Colombia) • Oulu University - OULU (Finland) • Polytechnic of Turin - POLITO (Italy) • Technological University Dublin - TUD (Ireland)
• Northern Regional College - NRC (United Kingdom) • Tecnológico de Monterrey - ITESM (Mexico) • University of Guadalajara - UG (Mexico) • Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María - UTSM
(Chile) • Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso - PUCV
(Chile) • Technological University of Bolivar - UTB (Colombia) • Technological Institute of Costa Rica - ITCR (Costa Rica) • University of Costa Rica - UCR (Costa Rica) • Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja - UTPL (Ecuador) • Technical University of the North - UTN (Ecuador) The W-STEM project's attraction campaigns in the context of the UTPL have among their objectives the development of bootcamps focused on the promotion of STEM areas. To make the implementation of these bootcamps fit the needs and interests of young people, an activity has been carried out that focuses on involving young people in the design process, so that they are involved in the co-creation of the bootcamps.
Under the name of "Women in Engineering," the activity has been developed in the framework of the International Women's Day, which is celebrated on March 8 to claim the equality of women in all areas of society. Specifically, the activity took place on 3 and 5 March 2020. In this context, the activity was organized in two stages. The first focused on diagnosing the perception of young people about STEM careers, and a second stage focused on designing action plans for bootcamps.
A total of 78 second- and third-year high school students from three schools in Loja (Ecuador) participated. In particular, third-year high school students from the Antonio Peña Celi School, second-year high school students from the San Gerardo Educational Unit, and third-year high school students from the Cordillera Educational Unit. Of the participants, 53.85% were women and 46.15% men, distributed as shown in Table 2. The spatial distribution of the activity can be seen in Fig. 1. For the organization of this diagnostic workshop of the perception of the young people in the Loja city, regarding the careers in STEM areas, two fundamental objectives were raised: the design of a strategy to obtain information from the vision of the young people and to use the technological resources habitual to the group; and, to include the young people in a process of co-creation of bootcamps plans to stimulate and to strengthen the STEM vocation.
To fulfill the first objective, it was decided to organize an informal meeting with the groups of young people, in a space intentionally designed at the UTPL, to encourage conversation, creativity and innovation (Fig, 1). As a technological resource, an online survey was designed and implemented using Socrative, which the young people accessed using tablets acquired within the W-STEM project.
The workshop was organized in three moments to fulfill the second objective: (i) preliminary assessment of the level of knowledge of the youth about the STEM topic, (ii) brief presentation of the objectives and scope of the W-STEM initiative, and (iii) implementation of an online survey to discover the predisposition of the youth to choose or not a STEM career.
At first, the preliminary evaluation allowed to know the youth's level of knowledge about the STEM concept and the experiences in secondary education. Although it is a concept widely used in the academic field, it is a term that is not part of the usual vocabulary of young people, and is not always presented in secondary education. The approach used to develop this first moment was a round of open questions and answers, which also served as an icebreaker dynamic.
The second moment of the workshop focused on presenting the W-STEM project. Specifically, one of the members of the project at the UTPL, shared with the young people the objectives and scope of the W-STEM project and the initiatives developed in the Ecuadorian context, as well as the experiences and experiences in university training in STEM-related careers.
Finally, in the third moment, a data collection was carried out through a brief questionnaire developed in Socrative to know young people's opinion regarding STEM careers. In particular, the questionnaire consisted of the following questions: • Name: you can use your real name. • Sex (Female/Male). • Do you have among your first three options, to study a STEM career (Science,
Technology, Engineering or Mathematics)? (Yes/No). • Why would you choose a STEM career? (Open question). • Why would not you choose a STEM career? (Open question) 4.2
Although the sample is still not very significant, it allows us to get closer to the young people's perspective in the schools of the city, the country and the Latin American region, concerning the careers related to STEM. As previously described, the sample comprises 78 pre-university students with distribution by sex of 53.85% females and 46.15% males (Table 2).
Regarding the first question, “Do you have among your first three options, study a STEM career (Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics)?,” of the total students who participated in the workshop, 38 students (49%) have as an option a STEM career for their university education. On the other hand, 40 students (51%) indicated that they do not have a STEM option. Regarding the distribution by sex, of those who consider STEM as an option for their university education, 42% are women and 58% are men, as shown in Fig. 2.
Regarding the reasons for selecting a STEM career, these have been synthesized from students' comments in the open questions. Of the reasons identified in the analysis of the qualitative data, there are five main reasons why pre-university students would choose STEM careers:
2. They are attracted to technology related topics. 3. They like STEM-related topics. 4. They are considered applicable and useful careers for the future. 5. They consider these to be interesting careers.
Fig. 3 shows a graphical representation of the total answers obtained in the question “Why would you choose a STEM career?” in descending order. On the other hand, the main reasons why women would choose a STEM career are:
2. They are considered applicable and useful careers for the future. 3. They consider these to be interesting careers. 4. Possibility of knowing how things work. 5. Good demand for labor.
Finally, the five main reasons why the young people who participated in the workshop (men and women) would not choose a STEM career are shown and synthesized below, which in this case coincide with the five main reasons identified by the women:
5. They consider the offer of STEM careers to be old.
In this work, the concept of co-creation is closer to the Nordic meaning of a
collaborative innovation [
Just as a reference, it is worth mentioning that by 2018, 39% of the world's
population was young between 10 and 24 years old, while 14% of the population was
between 25 and 64 years old [
Then, the objective was set to involve young people in the design of the proposed BootCamps, with the support of the STEM subject teachers and directors of the proposed ones, with the support of the STEM subject teachers and directors of the secondary education establishments, and the support of the STEM working groups in the universities. Priority support comes from the parents of the young people, who are involved in the planning and implementation of activities.
In this context, the planning of a BootCamp is a space for discussion and identification of the expectations of young people concerning science and technology, prioritizing activities according to their scale of urgency, co-creating workshops or challenges that motivate them intrinsically and extrinsically, and the development of what is proposed and monitoring of results. A fundamental activity should be the dissemination and socialization of results in the formats of greatest acceptance among young people, such as audio, video and new forms of graphic expression such as comics, among others.
One of the main contributions collected and agreed upon as a strategy for the attraction workshops to be carried out is to adopt the format of challenge-based learning to solve real problems. Teams of students and parents will be formed, with the guidance of one or more professionals from the university environment who will transmit the foundation and application of STEM careers, to propose solutions to the problems raised.
Finally, it is proposed to include as a transversal variable the effort of the WSTEM Node partners, the consolidation of work teams, the insertion of rapid prototyping with the support of methodologies such as Design Thinking, and the accompaniment of potential enterprises related to STEM applications. 6
It can be observed from the beginning that one of the reasons why young people do not consider choosing a STEM career is because they are not aware of the academic offerings and the advantages they offer as professional training. This aspect can easily be improved from universities and interest groups, creating and implementing spaces for socialization and experimentation.
In terms of STEM selection by gender, it was found that the percentage of female students who selected any STEM-related university career is 16% less than that of male students.
It is encouraging to note that the number of reasons students select a STEM career is 27% more than the reasons they would not take this option. The answers obtained in this sample of students allow us to approximate the students' reasons for selecting a STEM career in Ecuador and Latin America.
Using the co-creation methodology for the definition of bootcamps development, the W-STEM Node team has served to carry out a planning with methodologies and activities according to the requirements of the young people but oriented to know the advantages of STEM careers.
Acknowledgments. With the support of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union through Key Action 2 "Capacity-building in Higher Education". W-STEM Project "Building the future of Latin America: engaging women into STEM" (Reference Number 598923-EPP-1-2018-1-ES-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP). The content of this publication does not reflect the official opinion of the European Union. The responsibility for the information and opinions expressed in the publication lies entirely with the authors.