Profs fear engineering exam may be ‘biased’ against women

Article here. Excerpt:

'Two Kansas State University professors have discovered that women in engineering are 11.6 percent less likely to pass the field’s professional license exam, which they suggest may partly be due to “biases in the exam itself.”

To obtain a license, engineers must pass the Principles and Practice of Engineering (PE) exam after four years of field experience. Taken by a few thousand people each year, the eight-hour exam is typically considered the “gateway” to a long-term engineering career.

But a new study casts concern over whether the exam is fair for female engineers. Led by Julia Keen and Anna Salvatorelli, the study finds that women taking the exam nationally are 11.6 percent less likely to pass, and that the disparity is even worse in certain states.
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Lead author Julia Keen says she was motivated to investigate after earning her PhD in Engineering and seeing many of her peers leave the field.

Though Keen notes that women’s decision to leave engineering is influenced by many factors, during her dissertation research, she discovered that the PE exam repeatedly came up as a roadblock for women.'