The influence of gender on perceptions of and preferences for the classroom environment and their relationship with persistence in engineering

This investigation studied lower-division undergraduate women and men's perceptions of classroom environment in a pre-engineering course, their preferences for the classroom environment, and whether their classroom environment perceptions and preferences influenced their persistence in pre-engineering. Nearly 300 university students in a pre-engineering course gave their perceptions of the actual classroom environment and their preferences for an ideal classroom environment on a survey (response rate = 90.4%). The classroom environment survey instrument included dimensions from the Science Laboratory Environment Inventory--Student Cohesiveness, Open-Endedness, Rule Clarity, Integration, and Material Environment--and additional dimensions of Faculty Interaction and Awareness of Gender Discrimination.;Students preferences for the classroom environment differed significantly from their perceptions on all dimensions. For six dimensions students' preference scores were higher than their perception scores, except for Gender Discrimination whose preference score was lower. Lower-division women and men students' perceptions of the classroom environment were similar; women perceived significantly more Gender Discrimination in the classroom environment than men. Women's mean preference scores were significantly higher than men's mean scores for three dimensions: Student Cohesiveness, Faculty Interaction, and Rule Clarity. Finally, students' classroom environment perceptions did not have a relationship with persistence, but student preferences for the classroom environment did have a relationship with persistence.