Why Are We Doing This Research?
Background:
Women are not only under-represented as engineering professors, but have been shown to advance up the promotion ladder more slowly than men. Research shows that women spend higher proportions of their time on teaching and service and smaller proportions on research than their male counterparts. Other research has shown that writing groups can dramatically increase productivity (e.g. number of papers and grant applications written).
Scholars have investigated participants’ rate of writing submissions before and after taking part in writing groups. These scholars have demonstrated a ‘per person’ increase from a baseline of 0.5 to1.2 publications, per year (Rickard, et al. 2008). Writing groups were also shown to:
1. Increase writing confidence
2. Improve satisfaction with the publishing process
3. Provide opportunity for peer support, recognition
4. Incentivize writing activities
In all, good writing practices can be learned, and writing groups can bolster writing productivity.
Purpose:
Following the example of some universities in both Canada and the United States, we plan to start a writing group for female engineering faculty members at McMaster. We will identify willing participants for this research through the writing group; however, writing group participants are not required to take part in this research in order to belong.
With this project we seek to investigate the following questions:
(1) What, if any, specific benefits do writing groups have on perceived productivity of their participants?
In order to better understand participants’ experiences of the writing groups, we plan to use two measures:
a. Focus group(s) with willing writing group participants at the end of the Fall semester
b. Anonymized survey for writing group participants who prefer to participate anonymously in this study or, who are unable to attend the focus group.
If participants’ responses indicate that they accrued some benefit from engaging in a writing group we will explore how writing groups can be promoted and elicit any suggestions for how to build upon the benefits they have accrued. If participants were neutral or didn’t report any benefits, we will explore this further and elicit suggestions from participants about strategies to help professors as writers.
(2) How does time usage differ, if at all, between male and female faculty in McMaster’s Faculty of Engineering? In order to determine patterns of time allocation, we plan to use a faculty-wide anonymized survey of time allocation during Fall 2016. This online survey will allow us insight into the role and perception of gender identity on productivity and allocation of time among faculty members.
Women are not only under-represented as engineering professors, but have been shown to advance up the promotion ladder more slowly than men. Research shows that women spend higher proportions of their time on teaching and service and smaller proportions on research than their male counterparts. Other research has shown that writing groups can dramatically increase productivity (e.g. number of papers and grant applications written).
Scholars have investigated participants’ rate of writing submissions before and after taking part in writing groups. These scholars have demonstrated a ‘per person’ increase from a baseline of 0.5 to1.2 publications, per year (Rickard, et al. 2008). Writing groups were also shown to:
1. Increase writing confidence
2. Improve satisfaction with the publishing process
3. Provide opportunity for peer support, recognition
4. Incentivize writing activities
In all, good writing practices can be learned, and writing groups can bolster writing productivity.
Purpose:
Following the example of some universities in both Canada and the United States, we plan to start a writing group for female engineering faculty members at McMaster. We will identify willing participants for this research through the writing group; however, writing group participants are not required to take part in this research in order to belong.
With this project we seek to investigate the following questions:
(1) What, if any, specific benefits do writing groups have on perceived productivity of their participants?
In order to better understand participants’ experiences of the writing groups, we plan to use two measures:
a. Focus group(s) with willing writing group participants at the end of the Fall semester
b. Anonymized survey for writing group participants who prefer to participate anonymously in this study or, who are unable to attend the focus group.
If participants’ responses indicate that they accrued some benefit from engaging in a writing group we will explore how writing groups can be promoted and elicit any suggestions for how to build upon the benefits they have accrued. If participants were neutral or didn’t report any benefits, we will explore this further and elicit suggestions from participants about strategies to help professors as writers.
(2) How does time usage differ, if at all, between male and female faculty in McMaster’s Faculty of Engineering? In order to determine patterns of time allocation, we plan to use a faculty-wide anonymized survey of time allocation during Fall 2016. This online survey will allow us insight into the role and perception of gender identity on productivity and allocation of time among faculty members.
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