Women’s Participation and Factors Affecting Their Academic Performance in Engineering and Technology Education: A Study of Ethiopia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript presents a statistical study on the correlations between academic performance
of Ethiopian girls studying technology&engineering and a set of 14 variables. Some results
are new and even striking, as the one on a negative correlation of the performance with
existence of technology professionals in the family.

Some statements need to be clarified or corrected:

line 81-83: the sentence seems incomplete
line 89-90: I doubt. Women representation and innovation are two different things. If you put
'men' instead of 'women' in this sentence, we get an absurd - right? With 'women', it does not make
more sense.
line 315: thirteen > fourteen
line 481-483: How such a small increase of the related variable (0.0006441) allows to speak
about a significant impact?
line 511: 'Fortunately' for you as a researcher, but this kind of value should not be expressed in
a scientific text
line 578-579: this conclusion could imply a kind of education content limited to local issues. Please
think twice before you write this.

The condition is a critical reading of the  text and a correction of language. In particular, the construction of numerous sentences is weird.

Minor points:

line 23: five > No five (or number five)
line 36: four > four groups
line 40: paper > paper [7]
line 40: domination > dominated
line 42: discussed reasons also > also discussed reasons
line 56: And found > He found
line 65: Malik, &Courtney > Malik and Courtney (this or similar error appears in many places in the text)
line 117: stated as > stated that
line 135: ref [20] not appropriate here
line 179: Mostly, > It appears mostly, (or something like that)
line 102: Van den > Van den Hurk
line 214: In the fact > (what you mean?)
line 417: tall > talk
line 438: dismissal > dismissed
line 542: indicates teaching > indicates that teaching

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is an interesting paper analyzing the presence of women in STEM majors in Ethiopia, as well as the factors that could affect their achievement.

I go ahead with my suggestions to improve the paper, after considering the attempt to clarify the women situation around the world to which authors contribute with the present research.

English: must be revised because some arguments are not well followed because of the not appropriate use of subordinates or linking of sentences.

The use of "&" instead of and in text, collages instead of colleges, is repeated, but the rephrasing is needed through the complete paper.

References: they are not numbered following appearance, so it is difficult to follow them.

The title is explanatory of the paper subject: Women Participation and Factors Affecting their Academic Performance in Engineering & Technology Education: A study of Ethiopia.

Nonetheless, I recommend to change "&" by and and write "Study" with capital.

Abstract: 

I find a confusion with objective/objectives. In the title it seems that there are two: the analysis of women participation in STEM and the factors that could explain their achievement. It forces to use plural when referred to the paper objectives. Nonetheless, in the abstract it appears only one. In section 2.1, the Objective section (2.1) it appears again only singular, which makes the understanding more dificult. 

Therefore, in my opinion it must be highlighted in Abstract that there are two objectives: the  women participation analysis, and factors affecting the women achievement in Science and Technology university majors in Ethiopia. 

To continue with the abstract, authors talked about primary and secondary data, while they use "both" and only include primary. The description of both kinds of data must be done in a sequential order.

Introduction: 
In sections 1.1 and 1.2, a lack of more general studies on the gender in STEM are detected, such as: 
Patall, E.; Steingut, R.; Freeman, J.; Pituch, K.; Vasquez, A. Gender disparities in students’ motivational experiences in high school science classrooms. Sci. Educ. 2018, 102, 951–977.

Lytle, A.; Shin, J.E. Incremental Beliefs, STEM Efficacy and STEM Interest among First-Year Undergraduate Students. J. Sci. Educ. Technol. 2020, 29, 281–282. 

Lin, T.; Tsai, C. Differentiating the Sources of Taiwanese High School Students’ Multidimensional Science Learning Self-Efficacy: An Examination of Gender Differences. Res. Sci. Educ. 2018, 48, 575–596. 

Witherspoon, E.B.; Schunn, C.D. Locating and understanding the largest gender differences in pathways to science degrees. Sci. Educ. 2020, 104, 144–163. 

And other studies comparing countries to emphasize the importance of them, such as Sikora, J.; Pokropek, A. Gender segregation of adolescent science career plans in 50 countries. Sci. Educ. 2012, 96, 234–264. 

Regarding section 1.3, Factors ...

1.3.1. Sociocultural factors

Stereotypes are such kind of factors, and are widely studied although they are not considered directly in this paper. Nontheless, reference numbered 20, Stereotypes are also an important sociocultural factor, as indicated in
Fernández-Cézar, R., Garrido, D., García-Moya, M., Gómezescobar, A., & Solano-Pinto, N. (2020). Equity or Stereotypes in Science Education? Perspectives from Pre-University Students. Sustainability, 12(22), 9354, does study not only stereotypes, but also school location (urban/rural), type of school and educational stage (related to age). Despite, the factors that authors indicate in line 135 where this reference appears are not investigated. Therefore, a revision of references to support the arguments that author want to reinforce or bear is needed through all the paper, in all the sections of the introduction in particular.

Stereitypes are also influencing the role model, so in section 1.3.7 could also be considered as factor.

Materials and methods.

Emphasize and keep that there are two objectives.

2.1 Objectives ...

Clarify the factors analyzed in objective II, provided that there is a finite set of them analyzed. Rephrase it as:....to investigate whether .... are factors affecting ...

In this part the hypothesis of the paper must be considered (2.9)

2.3, retitle as Procedure, Data collection and sampling.

Sample description, must follow, which should include the demographics of the participants.

Section 2.4 is rather  Quantitative data analysis, while it is said "Qualitative".

I find the sections not appropriately ordered: in my opinion, it must appear  first the definition of the variables, then the instruments used for each, with the internal consistency (2.4.1). After that, it must appear the Data analysis (now 2.8) starting by explaining the dependent and independent variables, the normality test for the dependent variable, which will determine the correlation coefficients provided, whose kind (Spearmann, Pearson, chi-squared provided that some variables are dicotomic) must be indicated in the data analysis and in table 2.

The last section must be the model specification.

In none of the sections of this part is there any reference to the way the Secondary data have been collected. It must be included.

Discusion and conclusion sections are right.

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript has been greatly improved. Thanks to author for taking into account the suggestions in a so effective way.

Regarding English, it seems clearly that has been edited because now it is much clear and well structure.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

 

Point 1: Regarding English, it seems clearly that has been edited because now it is much clear and well structure.

Response 1: We tried to edit the English grammar for the second time.