A Grounded Theory Approach to Uncovering the Process of How Sustainability Topics Influence Women Engineers’ Career Choice and Engagement

Abstract

Despite the growing demand for more engineers associated with the profession’s relevance in addressing the world’s most challenging sustainability problems, more young girls are choosing other career paths with similar relevance such as healthcare, compared to engineering. This scenario has been attributed to their lack of understanding of engineering roles in addressing such issues and thus indicates the relevance of research that not only provides such understanding, but also shows how women engineers’ career choice is influenced by sustainability topics. Previous research has only identified such topics that appeal to women’s attraction to engineering. However, knowledge about how this decision is reached is currently lacking. Consequently, this paper aims to uncover the process of how sustainability topics influence women’s choice of engineering using a grounded theory approach to collect and analyse the data. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 women engineers who were purposively and theoretically sampled. The results show that the link between sustainability topics and women’s choice and engagement in engineering is largely manifested through four primary interrelated factors: exposure, awareness, interest and direct involvement (EAID). The study outcome is a novel EAID process model indicating that women’s interest and direct involvement in engineering could be influenced through two main routes—either by creating exposure or by awareness of engineering roles that cause or address sustainability challenges. It offers practical implications for engineering institutions, which could inform strategies for recruiting and attracting more women to engineering, and possibly enhance gender diversity and sustainability practices in the profession.

1. Introduction

The underrepresentation of women and skills shortage challenges threatens the future of the engineering profession, whereas attracting more women to engineering will advance its potential to address increasing global sustainability problems [1,2]. Despite the renowned role and growing demand for more engineers associated with the profession’s relevance in addressing the world’s most challenging problems, more young people, especially girls, are choosing other career paths compared to engineering. For instance, according to findings from Engineering UK [3], among the five career options surveyed (engineering (33%), business (47%), technology (53%), healthcare (54%) and science (55%)), after science, healthcare was the second most appealing to women. As evident in this survey outcome, the report highlighted that girls are showing more interest in pursuing a healthcare career and similar careers with renowned relevance in addressing current global challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic and making positive impacts on society. These data reveal that women are more attracted to healthcare than engineering careers despite the fact that both careers possess similar relevance in addressing such global challenges. Therefore, such a scenario indicates the importance of research into the factors that appeal to women’s interest in careers with such relevance to attract more women to engineering.

Such perspective aligns with an emerging body of research, which utilised quantitative approaches such as surveys in their studies. The findings suggest that highlighting sustainability topics or themes related to the social relevance of engineering, such as helping people and societal impact, could make the discipline attractive to underrepresented groups, including women [4,5,6,7]. However, as indicated in Ken-Giami et al. [8], this approach provides narrow insights into only broad sustainability topics that contribute to women’s engineering career choice, thus overlooking various specific sustainability topics that appeal to women’s choice of engineering. This sustainability-themed concept as defined by Ken-Giami et al. [8] and also utilised in this study is embedded in UNESCO’s [9] definition:

“Sustainability is thought of as a long-term goal (i.e., a more sustainable world), while sustainable development (SD) refers to the many processes and pathways to achieve it,” such as sustainable production and consumption, equal access to clean water and healthcare, waste management, taking action to combat climate change and other UN SDGs.

These sustainability processes being referred to in UNESCO’s [9] definition and regarded in this study as themes or topics include those that are synonymous with engineering grand challenges, which represent the role of engineers in addressing sustainability issues [10]. In their study, Ken-Giami et al. [8] characterised these engineering challenges under the three broad pillars of sustainability, social, environmental and economic, to examine their influence on women’s engineering choice. The findings showed that sustainability topics such as water quality/quantity, climate change, waste management, biodiversity, and material consumption/energy use had a greater influence on women’s engineering choice relative to economic performance and equity themes. The study suggested that engineering institutions could focus on emphasising the role of engineering in addressing any of these influential sustainability themes as a strategy to attract more women to the discipline.

Despite these insights, knowledge about how women’s engineering career decisions are influenced by sustainability themes, which is necessary to inform the strategies for utilising such priority themes to attract them to the profession, is currently lacking. Although this type of knowledge requires a qualitative approach to generate insights into the process of how these themes influence women’s engineering career decision, the majority of previous research has been conducted quantitatively [11,12,13]. In addition to the notable lack of qualitative research in this area, women engineers’ perspectives of how such themes influenced their decision to choose engineering has not been studied, especially in the United Kingdom and Nigeria. Ken-Giami et al. [8] highlighted the importance of conducting this understudied research area in both countries. The authors argued that addressing this gap could not only generate unique lessons and strategies for attracting women to engineering in both contexts, but it could also provide new insights into the research problem from both developed and developing nations’ perspectives, especially since a significant proportion of previous studies have been conducted in the United States [4,11,12,13], irrespective of the fact that women’s underrepresentation in engineering and the complex sustainability challenges remain a global problem.

Likewise, the general public perception of engineering as a profession, where boys make toys and objects in both countries, such as auto mechanics who fix things and buildings by construction workers [5,14,15,16], reinforces women’s negative perception of the limited career options for them in the discipline. This restricts the possibility of their exposure to the various opportunities that exist in the profession, which in turn affects gender representation, especially at primary and secondary school levels [15]. This situation is even more uncertain for girls in Nigeria where engineering exposure at both school levels is practically non-existent [17]. Although in the UK, women’s exposure to the societal impact of engineering is more evident in higher education [14], Nigeria’s renowned deficiency in offering such exposure [18] limits women’s interest and potential engagement in the discipline. Hence, it will be necessary to determine if this difference in engineering exposure for women in both countries might result in a different process of how sustainability topics influence career decisions of the two groups. Additionally, given that there are differences in the prevailing sustainability challenges and topics that both countries are focused on addressing [19,20], it will be interesting to observe whether such differences reflect in how these specific topics influence the career choice of women engineers from the two countries. This understanding could be beneficial in enhancing engineering education and employment in both countries.

Likewise, the relevance of generating insights into the link between sustainability topics and women’s engineering choice is evident in Engineering UK [3]. The report highlights that challenges brought about by issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic prompted more women to participate in careers, which would help them address these issues such as healthcare. However, this did not translate into more women choosing an engineering career due to the profession’s shortcomings of systematically excluding girls and women, which has led to limited exposure, career interest and their lack of awareness of engineering roles in addressing such issues. Thus, although women may be aware of the impact of such sustainability challenges, they may not understand the role and relevance of engineering in addressing these. This scenario presents an opportunity for engineering to demonstrate the link between the profession and such sustainability themes to attract more women. Hence, research that provides insights into the link between women engineers’ career choice and the sustainability issues or topics of interest to them becomes of utmost importance to inform strategies for recruiting and attracting women to engineering. Similar to the Engineering UK [3] report, the proponents of the “people-society themed interests of women” argue that identifying the connection between engineering and such topics is key to making the profession attractive to underrepresented students and could influence the decision of more women to choose a career in engineering [13,21,22].

Consequently, the aim of this paper is to explore women engineering practitioners’ perspectives of the link between these topics and their career choices in order to uncover the process of how sustainability topics influence women’s engineering career choice and engagement. This paper also examines whether there are any differences in this process between women engineers in Nigeria and the UK. Findings from previous related studies demonstrate that the concepts of sustainability and engineering career choice appear to exist in isolation, despite their clear links. However, unique insights into the specific themes within the three sustainability pillars that influence women’s engineering career choice were identified in Ken-Giami et al. [8]. This paper therefore builds on that knowledge by linking both concepts to provide detailed insight and answers to the research question—How do sustainability topics influence women’s choice and engagement in engineering as a career? Such understanding, which is a potential impact of this study, could be used to inform businesses, organisations or institutions of strategies for recruiting and attracting more women to engineering, and possibly enhance gender diversity and sustainability practices in the profession.

2. Methods

To investigate the process of how sustainability topics influence women’s engineering career choice and engagement in the UK and Nigeria, the present study adopted a grounded theory (GT) qualitative approach. In this section, the GT procedure is presented in three subsections, namely, GT choice justification, sampling strategy, data collection and data analysis.

2.1. The Choice of a Grounded Theory Approach in This Study

To achieve the aim of this paper, the GT methodology was selected as most appropriate for this exploratory qualitative study [21,22]. GT is typically an inductive approach aimed at developing a theory or an explanation by thoroughly investigating a range of individual cases through a process known as constant comparison [23]. The logic of GT was summarized in Charmaz’s [21] definition as follows:

Stated simply, grounded theory methods consist of systematic, yet flexible, guidelines for collecting and analysing qualitative data to construct theories from the data themselves (…) Grounded theory begins with inductive data, invokes iterative strategies of going back and forth between data and analysis, uses comparative methods and keeps you interacting and involved with your data and emerging analysis.

(p. 1)

Considering that this study aims to investigate the process of how sustainability topics influence women’s engineering career choice and engagement, these useful strategies provided by GT allowed the researchers to develop a set of interrelated concepts, expressed in the production of a substantive theory or process model [24].

Furthermore, the GT approach proved particularly useful owing to the scarcity of previous empirical studies in this area. The method thus provided in-depth insights into how sustainability topics influence women’s decision to choose engineering, particularly in Nigeria and the UK, based on the emergent data or findings grounded in the data. Grounded theorists agree that it is crucial to develop this new knowledge from the collected data rather than from pre-existing frameworks to avoid limiting the researcher’s sensitivity to emerging themes and thus affecting the data interpretations [21,25].

2.2. Sampling Strategy

In this qualitative study, two types of sampling strategies were adopted. First, purposive sampling, which refers to the technique where participants or data sources suitable for answering given research questions are purposively selected [23,26], was implemented. This sample strategy was adopted following the suggestion by Chun Tie et al. [24] in that it generates the initial data for analysis. Hence, an initial purposive sampling, which directed the data generation and analysis of the study, was conducted concurrently. This concurrent data generation and analysis is an essential aspect of GT research, as it allows for collecting, coding and analysing the initial data before further data collection and analysis is undertaken [27].

Second, theoretical sampling strategy, which involves “the process of identifying and pursuing clues that arise during analysis in a grounded theory study” [24] (p. 5), was utilized. This strategy allowed for the sampling of new participants that would provide relevant information regarding the emergent categories from the initial data generated through the purposive sampling. Theoretical sampling strategy is also fundamental to GT research, as it aids in saturating the categories under development, hence developing the evolving theory whilst ensuring that the theory is grounded in the data [21,28].

In this study, the objective of the qualitative study guided the purposive selection of practising women engineers to commence the process of concurrent data collection and analysis. However, these participants were asked open-ended questions to gain insights into how they interpret the influence of the factors that led to their choice of engineering without imposing any preconceived knowledge about sustainability concepts. This approach prevented the researchers from limiting their sensitivity to emerging themes, which may affect the data interpretations [21,25].

Despite this approach, analysis of data from the purposive sample generated codes around such concepts of sustainability topics and how these influence women’s choice of engineering as a career. Codes of girls’ attraction to messages that convey the impact of engineering on everyday life tools and technology that they can relate with, emerged from this initial data as well. Based on these initially generated codes, the researcher decided to theoretically sample women engineers who are experienced with inspiring girls to engage in engineering such as STEM Ambassadors as well as those currently involved in sustainability projects, to provide the most information-rich source of data to further saturate the categories under development. Hence, the participants that were selected through theoretical sampling were recruited based on the developing theory of how sustainability topics influenced women’s engineering choice, which was generated from the participants that were purposively sampled.

Regarding sample size determination, Charmaz [21] (p. 345) emphasized that this should be based on “theoretical saturation, which is the point at which gathering more data about a theoretical category reveals no new properties nor yields any further theoretical insights about the emerging grounded theory.” Although the question of the exact sample size sufficient to reach theoretical saturation remains largely unanswered, some researchers suggest that factors such as the scope of study and application of adopted methods, including the length of interviews, can contribute to achieving this [29,30,31].

In this study, theoretical saturation was reached as follows. First, seven participants were purposively sampled, and initial codes were generated. Subsequently, in order to develop the codes and categories generated from the initial purposive sampling, eight more participants were theoretically sampled. The possibility of recruiting additional participants was considered should theoretical saturation not occur. However, this was not the case, as after conducting a series of constant comparisons between the developing theory and the raw data from the fifteen participants, no new findings emerged from any of the concepts or categories. Thus, theoretical saturation was achieved.

This study’s sample size is in accordance with other GT studies, which utilized and reported similar size. For instance, the study by Guest et al. [30] showed that 88% of developed codes from their analysis of 60 qualitative interviews was generated at the time 12 interviews had been analysed. Mason [31], who analysed 560 PhD qualitative studies, revealed that an average of 20 participants was utilized for GT studies, with between 15 and 50 as the common sample size for other qualitative studies.

The 15 participants who took part in the interview are practising women engineers in Nigeria (8) and the UK (7) with varying years of experience, drawn from different engineering disciplines, all renowned in their field, and have executed notable projects. The choice of utilizing this group as the sample for the qualitative study was motivated by the possibility of generating in-depth insights from their numerous years of continuous engagement in the engineering profession. Likewise, the choice to focus on both countries was based on the goal to determine whether the difference in both countries’ contexts might result in a different process of how sustainability topics influence the career decision of the two groups.

The participants were approached through LinkedIn and email, and the interview was conducted face-to-face virtually via Zoom due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation. Another reason for the choice of Zoom for this study was attributed to its unique features as an innovative video conferencing platform and it being the preferred choice for the majority of the participants. Likewise, it has been shown that Zoom has additional advantages that enhance its appeal to qualitative and mixed methods researchers [32]. For concerns of anonymity expressed by the participants, only background information such as their occupations, areas of specialisation and the number of years of practice were collected (

Table 1. Qualitative study participants’ profiles.

Participants Pseudonym	Occupation/Area of Specialty	Years of Experience as a Practising Engineer	Country
Anna	Petroleum engineer with specialty in machine learning for CO2 capture, utilisation and storage	4	Nigeria
Paula	Computer engineer with specialty in computational information retrieval, developing algorithms and programming	20	UK
Mary	Civil engineer with specialty in building structures, responsible for designing and constructing the first ever metro station in Doha	17	UK
Tina	Reservoir engineer with specialty in Wells and Reservoir Review and Production System Optimization (PSO)	4	Nigeria
Sarah	Civil engineer with speciality in drainage design for highways	20	UK
Dina	Mechanical engineering with speciality in building services	4	Nigeria
Dora	Reservoir engineer, with expertise in drilling wells	9	Nigeria
Ema	Mechanical engineer with specialisation in renewable energy, building and urban design.	10	UK
Martha	Aerospace engineer with specialty in product sustainability	4	UK
Maya	Civil engineer with specialty in Asset management and climate change	35	UK
Bonia	Chemical engineer with specialty in Engineering design, Asset optimisation and debottlenecking	20	Nigeria
Fiona	Chemical engineer, with specialty in monitoring energy regulation and compliance	20	Nigeria
Patty	Petroleum engineer with specialty in fluid drilling and waste management	6	Nigeria
Awa	Electrical engineer with special interests in energy sustainability, business and social entrepreneurship	31	Nigeria
Clara	Mechanical engineer with special interests in energy transition and embedding sustainability within technology design	31	UK

).

2.3. Data Collection

Before commencing the interviews, a pilot study was conducted. The objectives of this pilot study and how they were achieved are discussed in the next subsection.

2.3.1. Interviews Pilot Study

The following objectives guided the pilot study:

• To assess whether the questions were sufficiently open-ended to generate relevant data in line with the qualitative study aim;
• To ensure the interview guide was clear and easy to understand;
• To select the most suitable approach to transcription and test the software for transcription.

To achieve the first two objectives, the initial draft of the interview guide was sent to some qualitative study experts in academia and private practice for their feedback. These included Helen Scott and Karl Nunkoosing, who were chosen for their substantial contributions to the field and the qualitative orientation of most of their studies. This piloting resulted in some significant changes in the initial guide (see pre-pilot interview guide in Figure S3). For instance, all three experts expressed concerns about the fact that the questions were not suitable for a GT study, which are typically open-ended to generate enough in-depth data for developing the emerging theory without imposing any preconceived ideas. For example, in the initial interview guide, the first question asked was: “At what point did your interest in engineering develop?”, “What factors influenced your first interest in engineering?” Then, the next question immediately asked about the influence of sustainability topics in the participant’s choice of engineering.

However, it was observed during this piloting that this question format contradicts the goal of a GT study, which does not allow the researcher to approach the study with preconceived concepts or ideas (Section 2.3) as evident in the third question above. Thus, the final version of the interview guide not only incorporated more open-ended questions with several prompts to help generate sufficient data on the phenomenon, but it was also divided into two sets of interviews (Figure S2). The first set explored the participants’ opinion of the influence of the factors that led to their choice of engineering without imposing any preconceived idea about sustainability themes, whereas the second set sought to develop the themes that emerged from the first set of interviews.

Having discussed the approach utilized in achieving the first two objectives of the interview pilot study, Section 2.3.3 discusses how the third objective was achieved.

2.3.2. Interviews

Semi-structured interviews, which are a mid-point between unstructured and structured interviews, were used to collect qualitative data. This data collection method enabled the researcher to follow a set of fixed questions or prompts, and further probe beyond the approved questions [33,34]. Hence, this freedom to explore further, outside prescribed questions, can result in “unexpected and insightful data” [34] (p. 93).

The interviews were conducted virtually from June to August 2021 (see Section 2.2) in English, and each interview lasted for approximately one hour. Prior to each interview’s commencement, the participation information, which included a consent form, was sent to the participants to sign and return to the researcher (see Figure S1). The interviews were divided into two sets, representing the purposively and theoretically sampled groups, to align with the adopted GT approach. Both sets of interviews began with a “briefing” that contained general information about the study. First, the participants were reminded of the aim of the study and assured of the confidentiality of the entire process. They were also reminded that the researcher’s input would be minimal and that there were no right or wrong answers, as the goal was not to judge what they said, but to gain insights into their opinion and experiences as women engineers.

There were differences in structure of both sets of interviews (see Figure S2). In the first set comprising the purposively sampled group, the participants were asked open-ended questions to gain insights into how the participants interpret the influence of the factors that led to their choice of engineering without imposing any preconceived knowledge. As discussed in Section 2.2, this is in keeping with grounded theorists’ suggestion that this approach will help avoid a situation where the researcher’s sensitivity to emerging themes is limited, thus affecting the data interpretation. For instance, the interview started with an open and general question that initiated the conversation whilst encouraging retrospection, such as “Tell me about your first introduction to the engineering discipline” (Figure S2). As the participants described their experiences, additional questions were asked to generate further insights into the first question. For example, “What kind of information did you receive and where did this happen?”, “What was your reaction to this first information and introduction?”, “How did you feel?”, and “What aspects of this information appealed to you?”

The organisation of the interview followed Charmaz’s [21] (p. 67) GT interview technique, which is designed to be open-ended enough, followed by “intermediate questions,” to explore and generate an in-depth account of the participants’ experience about their decision to choose engineering. The questions that followed asked about the exciting aspects of the participant’s career, such as “What is exciting about your career and job in engineering? Why?”, “Tell me about an exciting engineering project you were or currently involved in?”, “What is it about?”, and “How did you feel to be part of the team that executed this project?” In following this approach, the participants’ responses from these first set of interviews helped generate a number of themes that were not imposed by a predetermined theoretical framework but emerged from the data.

The second set of interviews (Figure S2) commenced after the GT iterative and concurrent data generation and analysis of the first set of interviews. In this set, the questions were more structured owing to the goal of theoretically sampling participants to develop the particular themes that emerged from the first set of interviews. As Birks and Mills [27] observed, this process is important to saturate the categories under development, identify gaps in the existing data and provide insight into the unknown.

2.3.3. Transcribing the Interviews

The interviews were conducted virtually (Section 2.3.2), and the recording was transcribed before the commencement of the data analysis. The third objective of the pilot study was to determine the best way of transcribing the interviews (Section 2.3.1). Initially, Windows Media Player was used to play the audio recordings, while transcribing them to Microsoft Word. This method was found to be ineffective and laborious as one had to stop, rewind, play, while switching across multiple “windows”, greatly increasing the chances of human error. It was also time-consuming, as one minute of audio recording took between 10–15 min to transcribe. To overcome this obstacle, Otter.ai transcription software [35] was tested and chosen for the main study. A useful option provided by this software is the possibility to perform all the steps required for the transcription within a single window, which greatly reduced the time used for transcription. The next section discusses the methods utilized to analyse the data.

2.4. Data Analysis

Data from both sets of interviews were imported into NVivo12, which is arguably one of the most utilized and recognised Qualitative Data Analysis Software (QDAS) for managing and sorting data, running queries, and keeping track of the data, while conducting data analysis in a time-efficient manner. The data were analysed using the GT approach. Most GT researchers agree that it involves an iterative process which typically begins with a sequential sampling strategy as mentioned in Section 2.2 [21,27]. This was followed by an iterative data collection and analysis, which involved different stages of coding, conducted in conjunction with taking memos (memoing) and constant comparative analysis. Additional details of the GT procedure adopted in this study are discussed in the following subsections.

2.4.1. The Development of Codes and Themes through Initial, Analytical and Theoretical Coding

Even before coding of the data, whilst transcribing the interview, the researchers discovered some emerging themes. This is supported by Dörnyei [33], who suggested that the emergence of themes at the transcription stage occurs as the researcher is immersed in the data. Subsequently, following the GT procedure adopted in this study, initial coding of the data was the first step that was undertaken, which involved assigning labels that are typically descriptive and similar to the data [36].

This coding process commenced with line-by-line coding of the first set of transcripts, which comprised questions about the participants’ first introduction to engineering to gain insights into how they interpret the influence of the factors that led to their choice of engineering without imposing any preconceived knowledge (Section 2.2). During this initial coding stage, themes such as exposure to the magnificence and impact of a visible and tangible engineering structure, and awareness of the direct benefits of an engineering structure in providing electricity for the community were identified from the data. Next, from these detailed codes, core categories were identified to reduce the codes and proceed beyond the descriptive phase [27] until the point when no new code emerged. This type of coding is referred to as focused or analytical.

At this point, the data from Interview 1, which were from the purposively sampled participants, began to reveal some patterns regarding how women’s exposure to engineering link to sustainability topics/challenges and their direct involvement in addressing these challenges, influenced their career choice and engagement in engineering. Subsequently, it was discovered that the additional data generated from the second set of the theoretically sampled interviewees (see Section 2.2), aligned with these existing codes. Of the 15 interviews conducted in this study (Section 2.3), this point of saturation occurred after the seventh, with a large number of codes generated before this point. For example, after the analysis of the first four interviews, 170 detailed codes were generated.

However, although data from some of the theoretically sampled participants (from participants 8–15) did not provide new codes nor themes, they identified new relationships between the emergent codes and themes. Hence, no new theme emerged after coding transcript 7. However, the process of how sustainability topics influence women’s choice and engagement in engineering began to emerge from the eighth and ninth participants. The relationship between the emerging themes, which became clearer from that point, indicated that the participants’ exposure and awareness of engineering’s relevance in addressing and solving sustainability topics/challenges elicited their interest and direct involvement in the profession.

Finally, thematic/theoretical coding was conducted by organising the codes into four more abstract and higher-level themes that emerged from the data [27], such as exposure, awareness, interest and direct involvement. This process of comparing codes both within and across the different cases and the collapsing of the codes aligns with the GT constant comparative analysis [23]. At the final theoretical coding stage in this research, the thematic categories became smaller. These categories were organised to parent–child relationship, typically referred to as hierarchical organisation of codes in NVivo. Categorising the codes into this type of relationship helped to sort and gain insight into the data and as a result, informed the study’s findings, which are presented in Section 3.

2.4.2. Case Analysis

In this research, all 15 interviews were classified under two cases such as “Case UK” (n = 7) and “Case Nigeria” (n = 8). The former comprised participants who are women engineering practitioners in the UK with varying years of experience from 4–35, whereas participants in the latter case have the same profile as the former case but are from Nigeria, with years of experience between 4–31.

As the qualitative data set increased, a fundamental component of the constant comparative analysis process was a cross-case analysis, which involved comparing the patterns occurring across both cases, including the differences and similarities. The purpose was to determine if the emerging patterns and relationships within each case were common across both cases. This approach made it possible to understand the general patterns and trends in the data more clearly. To aid in this analysis, process models were developed from the emerging data to visualise the process of how sustainability topics influence women’s choice of engineering (see Section 4.2).

2.4.3. Keeping Memos

Memo-writing has been regarded as “the intermediate step between coding and writing of the research’s first draft” [36]. Throughout the data analysis process, the researcher’s decisions regarding the naming and organisation of codes and the analysis were reported in a memo, which is one of the features of NVivo created for this purpose. These memos, which comprise a coding memo and researcher’s diary, included decisions such as merging, naming or changing the name of a code, creating a new code, and categorizing them into a parent–child relationship, sampling to follow-up on emergent themes and the researcher’s thoughts and interpretations on the discovery of new patterns in the data. An example of the researchers’ diary memo created for this study is presented in the following extract:

Based on the initial codes of girls’ attraction to everyday technology gadgets that link to sustainability topics and messages that show the impact of engineering, I chose to theoretically sample women engineers who are experienced with recruiting girls to engineering.

1 August 2021, 2 a.m.

Although the qualitative data collection began with purposeful sampling, as the data analysis evolved, some patterns began to emerge regarding how women’s exposure to engineering link to sustainability topics/challenges and their direct involvement in addressing these challenges, influenced their career choice and engagement. Hence, it became important to also theoretically sample women engineers who are directly involved in projects related to achieving sustainability in order to further develop these emerging patterns and categories.

8 August 2021, 1.50 p.m.

This process of memo writing served the purpose of ensuring the quality and validity of the study, rather than being utilized as a distinct data set. As the researchers became immersed in the data, the process helped develop more analytic thinking through reflecting and interpreting the data in a transparent manner [25]. It also served as a logical guide of the analysis process [37], which proved useful, considering the large number of initial codes that were created. Additionally, the entire memo writing process helped increase the researchers’ theoretical sensitivity, as it was adopted following the description of Hoare et al. [38] of how they “danced with data in search of heightened theoretical sensitivity (p. 241).

3. Results

The study results are presented according to the emerging themes derived from the data analysis.

3.1. Perceptions of How the Three Pillars of Sustainability Topics Influence Women’s Career Choice and Engagement in Engineering

This section presents the results of women engineers’ perception of how topics associated with the three pillars of sustainability (social, economic and environment) influence their career choice and engagement. These results show the emerging themes/factors that explain this process.

These findings were generated from 15 purposively and theoretically sampled women engineering practitioners in Nigeria and the UK, with varying years of experience (4–35) and expertise (Section 2.2, Table 1). The additional theoretical approach, which prompted the methodological need to interview women engineers experienced with recruiting and inspiring girls to consider an engineering career, provided rich answers to the research question.

All 15 participants had different periods of entry to study an engineering course (either at an earlier or later date) and all of them proceeded to engage in different engineering careers. Likewise, during the data analysis, it was discovered that these participants comprise two groups, those whose choice of engineering was influenced by sustainability topics and others who indicated that such topics rather influenced their continuous engagement after entry into the discipline.

The purposively sampled participants were asked open-ended and inductive questions such as “Tell me about your first introduction to engineering”, while others who were theoretically sampled answered more structured questions to follow-up with Interview 1 findings. These included questions such as “What was your first introduction to the role of engineers in solving sustainability challenges” and “How did this influence your career decision?” (see Figure S2 for both sets of interview guide).

Nevertheless, the majority of participants gave an account of how the three sustainability topics (social, environment and economic) influenced either their choice and/or continuous engagement in their career as engineers, through four primary interrelated factors: exposure, awareness, interest and direct involvement. These results are presented in the following subsections.

3.1.1. Theme 1: Exposure to Engineering Impact

A major contributing factor to some of the participants’ choice of engineering was attributed to their exposure to the impact of engineering on the society, people and environment. Whilst categorising the themes generated from the data, it was observed that this exposure being referred to by the participants was mostly experiential and thus had a strong influence on their career and engagement decision. It was gained out of an experience of engineering impact through either a physical structure, a movie, or the visual and problem-based course components of typical case studies of mistakes often made by engineers. Hence, for some of them, the significance of this exposure to engineering impact on their career choice was mostly attributed to the tangible and visible nature of engineering structures that provided enormous benefits to society:

My very first proper introduction to engineering had been when my parents took me to a dam structure back in Indonesia…it was basically a hydro power dam in West Java…and I think I was 10 at the time. And I was basically very, very impressed at this massive structure. And I think I said, Oh! I really want to do something like this in the future, build something that, you know, would be useful for other people. And you can see, it’s a tangible product that you’re creating. And it’s a hydro power dam, providing electricity for the surroundings.

Mary (UK, Civil engineer for 17 years, responsible for constructing the first ever metro station in Doha)

In contrast, for others, exposure to the prevailing negative impact of engineering practices on the environment in their country was a main attraction to the discipline:

I was attracted to engineering because earlier on, I saw the very bad practices of the oil and gas industry which causes so much damages to our environment.

Anna (Nigeria, Petroleum engineer at ExxonMobil, 4 years of experience)

These accounts point to the fact that the participants’ choice of engineering was influenced by the exposure to either a positive or a negative impact of engineering on society, which was both tangible and visible. Other participants expressed similar views. For instance, Sarah mentioned that a film that connected the relevance of engineering in solving problems, which keep people and society safe, attracted her to the discipline. Although not particularly related to engineering sustainability relevance, this account emphasises the participant’s drive to engage in the discipline to solve problems that can possibly harm people and the society after being exposed to the potential of doing so through an engineering career:

So I then decided to go into engineering, actually after watching a film called Starship Troopers about the universe getting invaded by great big bugs (3 or 4 m high) that kill everybody and everything in its way…and a woman was navigating a starship equivalent of a car park through the hell, and you’ve got to have really straight eyes to get through to solving the problem without hitting things. And I realized I can do that, therefore, I chose engineering.

Sarah (UK, Civil engineer for 20 years with speciality in drainage design for highways)

Anna further highlighted that exposure to her mother’s recycling practices and no-waste policy influenced her choice of engineering. She further emphasized that she would have chosen a different engineering field that would give her a better opportunity to contribute to enhancing waste management and recycling, if she had been exposed to such possibilities in the field at the time she enrolled to study engineering:

…there are some things that you do at home, and you don’t realize, have a long impact. My mom used to have like a no waste policy… And it’s something that I kind of grew up with, we can’t eat our food and have leftovers, she’ll tell you, you are wasting it and also, throwing it away is wasting resources. I grew up with that mentality… And then back home things as little as PET bottles and cartons, she would make you store them and sell them for a cheap amount. I mean, at that point, I didn’t realize that she was actually recycling…

…I feel like if I had the kind of exposure where my skills are matched with the different engineering disciplines, I probably wouldn’t have done petroleum engineering, I would have done something in the lines of maybe industrial or chemical engineering because I’m very passionate about sustainability…

Anna (Nigeria)

As mentioned earlier in this section, the participants in this study comprise two groups, those whose choice of engineering was influenced by sustainability topics and others who indicated that such topics rather influenced their continuous engagement after entry into the discipline. Although it was observed that this engineering impact on sustainability could be either positive or negative, the most striking underlying factor, which influenced the engineering career choice and continuous engagement of both the former and latter groups respectively, is the “exposure” to either of them. However, some differences were observed between the type and source of such exposure for both groups. As the last comments indicate, which were all from the former group, these included exposure to sustainability practices at home, positive sustainability relevance of engineering in the community or through a film that emphasised the professions’ problem-solving attributes.

In contrast, the latter group attributed their continuous engagement in engineering to exposure to not only sustainability-themed course content at university but contents that comprise case studies of different engineering sectors, the reality of the mistakes they make, and their impacts, as evident in Martha’s account:

So I decided to consider engineering because I saw that what they did was meaningful, I wanted to be in a role where I felt like I’m making a difference. So when I first went into engineering, during my second year, I did a lot of modules on sustainability, health and safety and the environment.

…we looked at a lot of case studies of different engineering fields from construction to petroleum and gas and seen all the things that could go wrong, due to either engineering mistakes or things being overlooked. And I think that’s what really made it stand out to me, that was the first time I ever considered that I, as an engineer, there’s a huge part to play, so it made me switch my course…. And that has directed my career to what I’m doing now.

Martha (UK, Aerospace engineer for 4 years with specialisation in product sustainability)

Thus, this finding highlights the experiential component of exposure to sustainability-themed problem-based course contents and its impact in defining the participant’s career path in engineering. For instance, such exposure, which created an experiential visual image of engineering mistakes, resulted in Martha’s definite career engagement.

3.1.2. Theme 2: Awareness of Engineering Relevance

Another important factor that some of the participants perceived as related to the link between their choice or engagement in engineering and sustainability topics is awareness of the relevant role of the profession in addressing such challenges. Although the exposure and awareness themes seem to hold similar connotations, the decision not to merge them was due to the difference in the meaning as defined by the participants’ accounts. In this case, awareness was perceived as essentially based on the information received or knowledge acquired. Unlike the exposure theme, such awareness was often gained from an information or realisation of engineering sustainability impact through sustainability-themed courses and school career fairs, with no components of problem-based activities:

… there are several fields in engineering. And I was drawn more to petroleum engineering, simply because Nigeria has a rich source of hydrocarbon and in my mind, I thought if engineering can help with enabling people with access to power and electricity… And we were rich in this resource, maybe that’s one area that I could contribute in and that’s how I found myself in petroleum engineering.

Dora (Nigeria, Petroleum/reservoir engineer for 9 years with expertise in drilling wells)

At university, we studied sustainability, but what we studied is the awareness of them, to make us aware that everything we do has an impact, and what sort of impact it could be. And so we don’t just suddenly design this massive dam in the middle of a rain forest, for example, and then it destroys everything. Essentially it is that awareness.

Mary (UK)

I became aware of environmental engineering through careers fairs at school… that’s the field that I really wanted to go into way back when I was a teenager… [But] as a civil engineer, pretty much every part of an individual’s life is influenced by a civil engineer to some degree…, we’re really core to society.

Maya (UK, Civil engineer for 35 years, leading sustainability and climate change efforts at Mott MacDonald)

One participant mentioned that her excitement about her choice of engineering began at the 400 level in University when she became aware of her role in providing solutions to sustainability challenges:

I got the opportunity to study Petroleum Engineering in the university after trying for different years to gain admission into medical school and I took up the role, it was very traumatising for me,.. adjusting to courses… it was until my 400 level that I found out that as an engineer, it is my job to provide solutions to sustainability goals. Today, I am one of the most excited person. I mean, especially when I think of all the awesome things as engineers we bring to this world. I look forward to being an engineer every day

Patty (Nigeria, Petroleum engineer for 6 years with specialisation in mud engineering)

Likewise, the impact of awareness as defined in this study on the continuous career engagement of the participants was evident in Dina’s account. It was observed that despite Dina’s reluctance to consider an engineering career due to her fear of maths, her awareness and realisation of engineering sustainability impact of combining energy with building services through sustainability-themed courses after entering engineering informed her continuous engagement in this area. This decision was facilitated by a lecturer with proficient skills who broadened her understanding of the concept:

…but I said no, I am not doing engineering because I didn’t like maths… So I went on to A levels for chemistry, biology and sociology…when A level results came out, I really failed woefully. My parents were not pleased. Then my oldest brother said to me, why don’t you go through clearing and study engineering…

Apart from properties and buildings, another thing that I was drawn to was Renewable Energy. I think it was because of Jovanna (her lecturer). She taught thermodynamics and renewable energy really well, so I was drawn to these aspects by the teacher or maybe someone that is already in that field. The way they talk about it, or the way they teach me …. And then when I realized that I can actually combine energy with building services, I was like, yes, sign me up.

Dina (Nigeria, Mechanical engineering for 4 years with speciality in building services)

This finding also buttresses the importance of proficient teaching in making engineering attractive to women who may accidentally or reluctantly enrol in engineering with little or no interest in the discipline.

Furthermore, Dora gave a striking insight into the role of awareness as one of the major facilitators of the link between sustainability themes and women’s engagement in engineering:

…I was quite timid growing up. So the thought of even going against my parents medicine career drive didn’t even get me to think about engineering, which was sort of like a natural flair for me, but having a family friend just, open up my mind to engineering, basically just cemented my decision.

Dora (Nigeria)

This account shows that despite the fact that the participant would normally not oppose her parents’ wish for her to study medicine, she ventured into engineering after being aware of engineering impact in addressing her country’s prevailing sustainability challenge.

Although most of the participants’ accounts in this study suggest that their engagement in engineering was through exposure, these findings suggest that awareness is also a crucial contributory factor. For instance, Martha’s previous account (see Section 3.1.1) suggests that exposure to negative sustainability and engineering practices influenced her engagement in the profession. Likewise, she further mentioned that an increased sustainability engagement and considerations of its impact on society, economy and environment might also contribute to building engineering impact awareness and as such influence more engagement in the profession:

And I think there’s a lot more engagement around the topic and people are a lot more conscious about how it affects them staying in business because sustainability is not just the environmental side of things, is also economic sustainability, and social sustainability.

Martha (UK)

Thus, this indicates that either exposure and/or awareness of engineering sustainability relevance and impact are two significant and strategic factors that influence women’s choice or engagement in the profession.

Such findings on the types of exposure and awareness of engineering impact and relevance in solving sustainability challenges, which the participants received, and how it was delivered are important evidence of how sustainability themes influence women’s choice of engineering. They also indicate that such exposure and awareness can influence choice and engagement both before and upon entry to the profession.

3.1.3. Theme 3: Interest in Addressing Sustainability Challenges

Most participants’ accounts revealed that the two main factors, exposure and awareness of engineering impact and relevance in solving sustainability challenges, resulted in the third factor, interest in contributing to solving these challenges, which further influenced their choice or continuous engagement in the discipline. Although these results might indicate that interest is rooted in exposure and awareness, its difference is evident in the fact that it involves a desire, feeling, curiosity and resolve to contribute to addressing sustainability challenges:

So I had like two options, medicine and engineering. I thought about how I am going to be dealing with human blood if I study medicine and I am not really a fan of blood, although I love and can take care of people but I felt that there are other ways in which I can impact my world, so, I got to know that engineering is like innovation, you get to bring in new ideas and you get to solve series of problems of the world…so that was like an interest… I wanted to be in a place where I will be relevant.

Tina (Nigeria, Petroleum/Reservoir engineer for 4 years)

I was attracted to engineering because I really have interests when things have to do with lower your carbon footprint, you know, trying to make the world a better place.

Anna (Nigeria)

Beyond the whole medicine [career] drive by my parents, I’ve always wondered why we didn’t have access to electricity in Nigeria. My mom is an entrepreneur, she had a Cold room. You could imagine, having a cold room where you sell frozen foods and, not having access to power. People and businesses will always suffer as a result of that…. And then, connecting this back to the end goal, taking into account my mom’s personal experience with her business, was what basically just cemented my decision.

Dora (Nigeria)

Although some of these participants’ choice of engineering was not based on their interest in solving sustainability challenges through the profession, being exposed and aware of engineering relevance in addressing these issues increased their interest and engagement. However, one participant reported a different experience where her interest in addressing these sustainability issues preceded awareness and exposure to such issues. In addition to her maths proficiency, at the core of her choice of engineering was an interest in making people’s lives better. Based on this interest, she was drawn and exposed to social and environmental issues experienced by her family and people in her community. Hence, based on a combination of interest and exposure to such issues, she developed problem-solving resolutions:

…I mainly stumbled into engineering, because of interest in mathematics…So for those of us in the analogue era (entered engineering a long time ago), those were not the times of the sustainability themes, but at the core of it was I wanted to make life better for the people around me and in the village, like my aunties who make groundnut oil. I see how they spend time and energy, trying to roll those groundnuts into paste and then extract the oil and all. And I thought there should be a better way to do this, I needed to solve some of these problems.

Fiona (Nigeria, Chemical engineer for 20 years, working in an energy regulation agency)

Similarly, Martha gave a salient example of the importance of interest in influencing engagement in engineering. Exposure to the negative impact of engineering on the environment and people intensified her interest in addressing these issues. Her interest was intense enough that she changed course mid-way through university to one that would give her the opportunity to address these issues. It also defined her career path decisions, which included a resolute and unpopular decision to work only in sectors where there are opportunities to solve environmental problems and with companies who share the same interest of reducing the environmental impact of their products:

During my second year, I did lots of modules on sustainability, health and safety and the environment. And that’s where my interest in environmental issues came from. So I switched my degree from just chemical engineering to chemical and energy, because I believe that we have, as engineers, responsibility to not just manufacture products, use processes that solve problems, but also make sure that we’re not impacting the environment and the people in a detrimental way at the same time.

…So I wasn’t specific that I wanted to work in the automotive or the aerospace or any of those. I just knew whatever role I would be in, I wanted to be solving problems that are related to environmental awareness and in a company that sees the importance of reducing the environmental impacts of their products.

Martha (UK)

Additionally, although the previous account suggests that exposure and awareness are key to eliciting interest in the participants to solve sustainability issues through an engineering career, Tina’s account revealed that interest remains an important factor in sustaining continuous engagement in the profession:

My desire to impact my world actually helped sustain my interest in engineering. When I saw that this thing I’m doing will be relevant… Also I actually have interest and love in this area that I actually majored in, because if you don’t have interests and you face challenges along the way, you can actually say I don’t want to continue anymore, but because of the love and interest I had, even with the really terrible education system in Nigeria, I had this drive, I was pushing, I wanted more.

Tina (Nigeria)

A parallel view was expressed by Dina whose initial interest in addressing sustainability challenges through engineering declined due to her country’s unsustainable practices:

When I realized that I can actually combine energy with building services, I was like, yes, sign me up. But then down here, they are not talking about to reduce electricity consumption. I’m very specific or particular about the amount of co2 in my building. Nobody down here cares about that. Lagos (a major city in Nigeria) was flooded yesterday, the amount of dirt on the road. The flooding raised everything up. And you realize that Nigeria is not ready for renewable energy. They’re still throwing away water can from their car into the road. I have absolutely no idea when they are going to…I feel like I’ve gotten to that point where I need to figure out what next I want to do in my career.

Dina (Nigeria)

These accounts suggest that interest in engaging in engineering to address sustainability challenges is directly influenced by exposure and/or awareness to the reality or existence of such challenges. However, as evident in Tina and Fiona’s accounts, interest seems to be also relevant in women’s choice or continuous engagement in engineering, as the experience and information gained from exposure and awareness, respectively, may not translate into a career decision without the desire and interest to engage in such profession.

3.1.4. Theme 4: Direct Involvement in Sustainability Problem Solving

It was observed from all the participants’ accounts that the relationship (interplay) between interest, exposure and awareness in explaining how sustainability topics influence their choice of engineering is incomplete without their direct involvement in solving such challenges. It is evident that the latter is a key aspect in this relationship owing to the fact that a combination of exposure, awareness and interest in addressing sustainability challenges resulted in the participants’ direct involvement in developing a solution to solve the problems. This involved an active participation and involvement in activities or making decisions that address such sustainability challenges:

I started my role as a trainee engineer… I was lucky that my supervisor was a British engineer who had a lot of experience, he told me: “you’re not going to ever sit down in the office, I’m going to send you to the field, because that’s where you’re going to get your hands dirty.” So for three months, I was out in the field. … And I saw the mistakes engineers make because it’s always in an operating plant you see mistakes …I started solving problems frequently. And then after a year or so, I then started my journey in projects.

Bonia (Nigeria, Chemical engineer for 20 years, chief engineer for an oil and gas corporation)

Another participant stated that being directly involved in tackling a tangible and real societal problem resulted in a feeling of satisfaction, which eased the aftermath of distressing images from witnessing societal disasters:

To be able to make that contribution to society, is very rewarding. So when I’ve been involved in the design and construction of projects that I’ve been part of, there’s something very tangible and real that I can see at the end, you know is the fruits of the team’s work, and that’s hugely rewarding …I work for the Environment Agency, and part of that job was around Incident Management. …So we had to provide that support during an emergency. The fact that I was able to make a contribution to addressing that made it a lot easier to deal with those images that can be quite distressing when you see on the news of people suffering from different incidents and events that happen.

Maya (UK)

Additionally, being directly involved in an organisation that focuses on addressing these issues might appeal to the interests of the participants and their further involvement in tackling more sustainability challenges:

…when I worked for West Sussex County Council in highway design, during design and construction, I became involved in the environmental assessments that needed to be put in place to make sure that we got the right balance, … I think it was there that my passion and engagement in sustainability and then climate change grew.

Maya (UK)

The significance of direct involvement in the relationship between sustainability topics and women’s engagement in engineering was amplified by some participants’ experiences, where a combination of exposure, awareness and interest in such tangible challenges cumulated in their direct involvement in developing novel projects with substantial benefits across all three pillars of sustainability:

…I really like math but I didn’t want to do pure math because I wanted to do something tangible, that you can see, and would actually have an impact in people’s life. … and I like problem solving. So that’s the reason I studied engineering…and in the view that I would then become and practice as an engineer.

One of my biggest projects is the one that kind of, made me. I spent five years on the project from the very start of detailed design to construction. And now it’s actually open for public. It’s a new metro station in Doha, five level and 50 m deep into the ground, and called the crown jewel of the metro system in Doha because they really didn’t have any kind of public transportation systems apart from taxis before. And by providing this Metro network, you’re essentially allowing people to move more freely, giving people a bit more independence than kind of relying on cars, which actually made an impact on the sustainability [because] Middle East isn’t the probably seen as the most sustainable right now. But this is kind of their step towards that.

Mary (UK)

So in Nigeria, people kept talking about gas flaring, polluting the environment. So one of the projects I did within my first year was around pollution in the environment. So what I did was that I looked at the technologies [and] discovered that there was a technology I called Dr. technology that can harness that flared gas, and then help boost it at a pressure where it can be utilized. So I started that study, and I completed it and I can tell you that at this point in time, it’s been rolled out, [and] would ensure that there is little or no flared gas in our gas plant.

Bonia (Nigeria)

All together, these findings provide useful and interesting insights, demonstrating that the link between sustainability topics and women engineers’ engagement in the field is manifested through an interplay of four main factors—exposure, awareness, interest and direct involvement (EAID). This interaction is illustrated in an EAID model, showing the process of how women’s engagement in engineering is influenced by sustainability topics.

As depicted in Figure 1, the EAID process can be implemented through two main routes (1 and 2). Route 1 begins with exposure and/or awareness of the negative impact of engineering in causing sustainability challenges or the profession’s positive relevance in addressing these issues. Route 2, however, begins only with awareness of such impact of engineering in either causing or addressing sustainability challenges. These first two components in both routes 1 and 2 of the EAID process model then elicits women’s interest in sustainability issues and finally their direct involvement in developing novel inventions and projects to tackle them.

However, there are slight differences in the process of how sustainability topics influence the UK participants’ (referred to as Case UK) engagement in engineering and that of Nigeria participants (Case Nigeria). Some aspects of the process differed, such as the kind of exposure and interest in certain sustainability challenges. These are presented in the next subsection.

3.2. EAID Process for Case UK

As mentioned in Section 2.2, 7 of the 15 women engineers interviewed for this qualitative study were classified as Case UK. As illustrated in Figure 1, results from the data analysis showed that the EAID process model for this group of participants mostly began with exposure. This finding indicates that for most of the Case UK participants, their choice and/or engagement in engineering was influenced by the exposure they received.

Additionally, the type of exposure that influenced the interest and direct involvement of Case UK in engineering was mostly through sustainability-themed course contents integrated with problem-solving activities and tangible structures depicting the positive relevance of engineering in communities.

3.3. EAID Process for Case Nigeria

Contrary to Case UK, the EAID process (Figure 1) for Case Nigeria, comprising 8 participants out of the 15 interviewees, began with either awareness or exposure to the negative impact of engineering practices on the society, environment and economy. This awareness, mostly amplified by the prevailing sustainability challenges in the country largely influenced this group’s interest and direct involvement in engineering.

The interpretation and implications of these findings on the differences of some components of the EAID process model for Case UK and Case Nigeria are discussed in Section 4.2.

4. Discussion

Comparing the results of this study with those obtained by other researchers proved difficult, as the literature review indicates that no research has explored women’s perception on how sustainability topics influence their choice and engagement in engineering. The literature has focused largely on identifying generic themes such as helping people and society that influence engineering students’ attraction to the discipline [4,12,39]. Consequently, this study provides a unique and novel understanding of how women engineers interpret the link between these sustainability topics and their engagement in the profession. These findings indicate that this link is largely manifested through four primary interrelated factors: exposure, awareness, interest and direct involvement (EAID.

First, exposure and awareness of engineering impact and relevance emerged from the data as the most important factors that explain this link, which is the process of how sustainability topics influenced the participants’ engagement in engineering. The significance of both factors was amplified by the type of exposure and awareness that they received. These included awareness and exposure to tangible positive impact and relevance of engineering in solving societal problems through infrastructures that provide enormous benefits to society and sustainability practices that enhance recycling and waste management as well as to the negative impact of engineering mistakes (Section 3.1.1 and Section 3.1.2). These emerging findings that indicate the type of exposure and awareness which the participants received are similar to those of previous studies that only mentioned such sustainability topics as influential to women’s attraction to engineering [4,12,13].

However, this particular study finding provides new insight into how these influential topics contribute to informing women’s engineering career decision. For instance, it was shown that exposure to the tangibility and reality of engineering relevance and impact in either addressing or causing these sustainability issues was a significant driving factor in the participants’ choice and engagement in engineering both before and upon entry to the profession. The importance of this finding is evident in the Engineering UK [3] report. It was shown that the tangible nature of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people, society and the economy resulted in girls associating a healthcare career as one that will give them the opportunity to make positive contributions to society. However, they could not associate the crucial role of engineering in providing such support of building the structures that healthcare and doctors rely on; therefore, fewer girls considered an engineering career. This reinforces the vital importance of exposure and awareness of engineering impact and relevance in explaining the link between women’s choice of engineering and sustainability themes, identified by this study. One implication and impact of this finding is that it provides substantial evidence for the engineering profession to utilize the opportunities generated by sustainability challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic to create awareness and exposure to the profession’s central role in addressing these issues to attract more girls to the field.

Another important aspect of the interplay of both factors in explaining how women’s choice of engineering is influenced by sustainability topics is the manner through which this engineering impact exposure and awareness was delivered. These included exposure and awareness of engineering’s sustainability role through problem-based sustainability course content, parent’s sustainability practice, school career fairs and a country’s increased sustainability engagement and considerations. Some participants vividly indicated that the experiential nature of this problem-based approach of exposing the impact of engineering, especially the profession’s mistakes on the environment and people, created a real-time picture of the profession’s challenges. This left an indelible impression and defined their choice of career path. As evident in Dora’s account, such exposure and awareness of the prevailing sustainability challenges in a country and engineering role in solving them also strengthened her decision to consider an engineering career against her parents’ wish for a career in medicine.

This finding partly reflects that of Moote and Archer [40] (p. 188), who suggested that students exposed to career education “are more likely to express broader career aspirations and less likely to be constrained by societal and/or familial pressures to make early career compromises.” However, our study findings provide specific insight into how sustainability topics can influence women’s engineering choice. Most of the participants in this study who were theoretically sampled based on their experience in recruiting and inspiring girls to consider an engineering career agreed that awareness and exposure to sustainability-themed problem-based activities/course contents and real-life impact of engineering produce first-hand experience that could inform girls’ choice and continuous engagement in the profession. Therefore, both factors are an important part of the process of how sustainability topics influence women’s choice and engagement in engineering.

The third and fourth important factors emerging from the data as crucial to explaining the link between sustainability themes and women’s choice of engineering are interest and direct involvement. It was observed that a combination of the experiential and informational nature of the type of awareness and exposure to sustainability elicited participants’ interest and direct involvement in addressing such issues through engineering (Section 3.1.3 and Section 3.1.4).

Additionally, where interest in addressing sustainability challenges as a reason to choose engineering preceded exposure and awareness of such issues, it resulted in increased problem-solving considerations and drive to become directly involved in engineering to address these issues (Section 3.1.4). Although the data mostly indicate that exposure and awareness are significant in eliciting this interest to address sustainability challenges through engineering, the importance of interest in the participants’ continuous engagement in the field was also emphasised. A striking example was observed in Martha’s account where her exposure to the negative impact of engineering during her university studies intensified her interest and drive to address such issues. Therefore, she changed to a different engineering discipline that will afford her the opportunity to address such issues and defined her career path decision to practise only with companies who share similar interests.

However, altogether, in cases where a combination of all three factors, exposure, awareness and interests in addressing sustainability challenges exist, these cumulated in the participants’ direct involvement in developing novel community projects with substantial significance and benefits across all three aspects of sustainability. One prominent study on this interest concept [41] (pp. 113–114), which proposed a four-phase model of interest development, broadly supports and provides some explanations to these findings. The model components describe how situational interest develops into emerging and well-developed interest. Situational interest, which can be triggered by instructional content or environmental stimuli and is maintained through personal involvement such as project-based learning, provides a basis for emerging and well-developed interests to be developed. The authors further suggested that an environment that supports an individual’s interest such as school field trips or exposure to art museums is crucial for progress to be made through all four phases of the interest development model.

Another extant theory that provides an additional explanatory power to this research’s EAID theory is Albert’s Social learning theory (SLT) [42]. One of the core concepts of SLT, termed observation learning or modelling, suggests that individuals can learn and actively imitate behaviours observed in other people. This can be either through a live model involving demonstration by an individual, a verbal instructional model of descriptions and explanations or a symbolic model where behaviour is displayed by real or fictional characters. The last two models of SLT align with the exposure and direct involvement components of this research’s EAID process model. For instance, the impact of the experiential exposure received by the study participants, elicited their interest and subsequent direct involvement in actually participating in solving the sustainability problems, which they were exposed to in the beginning of the process.

These theories of interest development and SLT provide evidence that support the EAID process model of how sustainability topics influence women’s choice of engineering. However, this current research evidence provides an extended knowledge, suggesting that awareness and exposure to tangible engineering impact and relevance to the society, environment and economy triggers the interest of women to engage in the discipline. If this interest is maintained through sustainability-themed problem-based contents, as depicted in the last stage of the EAID process model, it can develop into a more enduring interest. At this stage, the participant seeks more avenues to be directly involved in the object of interest, which addresses sustainability challenges and subsequently leads to a defining and self-sustaining career choice and engagement decision. This last stage of the EAID model, parallel to the well-developed interest dimension of the interest development theory, might lead to girls’ choice to major in engineering or the decision for further direct involvement or engagement of professionals [43]. This might explain this study participants’ drive to be directly involved in developing novel projects that address such issues of interest.

Hence, this emerging finding from the data indicates the significance of the interaction of exposure, awareness, interest and direct involvement in the relationship between women’s engagement in engineering and sustainability topics.

4.1. Interplay of EAID in Relationship between Sustainability Topics and Women’s Attraction to Engineering

The results highlighted four main interrelated EAID factors that explain the link between sustainability topics and women’s choice and engagement in engineering. Hence, the different components that characterize the EAID process and their interaction in this relationship form the focus of the discussion below. This EAID process model, developed from the analysis of data and illustrated in Figure 2 was presented in Section 3.1.4 but is represented here to discuss the central finding of this study, which shows the interaction of the components that underpin this model.

As illustrated in Figure 2, utilising sustainability topics to influence women’s choice and engagement in engineering can be implemented through two main routes or pathways (1 and 2).

Route 1 in the EAID process model begins with women’s exposure to either the tangible positive relevance or negative impact of engineering in addressing or causing sustainability challenges, which then develops into eliciting their interest and finally direct involvement in addressing these issues. This exposure could take different forms and settings, including through novel engineering structures providing substantial benefits to the community, the negative impact of engineering practices and its mistakes on the environment. Nevertheless, the results show that it occurs mostly through problem-based sustainability-themed course content and parental influence, including parents who are also engineering practitioners.

While Route 2 follows a similar process as Route 1, it begins with women’s awareness of a country’s prevailing sustainability challenge and engineering role in addressing these, leading to their interest and finally direct involvement in the profession to contribute to solving these issues.

A similar theory to this EAID process model is Silvia’s [44] conceptualisation of how interest evolves into enduring interests. Nevertheless, while Silvia argues that interest mainly emerges from the individual, our findings suggest that interest emerges from interaction between the individual and the environment. For instance, the majority of participants in the qualitative study highlighted that the exposure and awareness they received was through external interaction, which were both experiential and informational enough to trigger their interest in engineering.

Altogether, both routes of the EAID process model provide useful and novel insights into how sustainability topics influence women engineers’ engagement in the field. It is suggested that any of the routes that yield better results of engaging and eliciting the interests and direct involvement of more women in engineering should be implemented. However, there is a slight difference between both routes. For example, although both factors at the beginning points of routes 1 and 2 (exposure and awareness respectively) are significant in the process model, their unique features and significance were differentiated by the participants’ accounts, which indicated that the exposure they received was more experiential, while awareness was more informational. It was observed that exposure seems to be more significant, as it is more experiential than awareness. Hence, most of the participants who indicated exposure as the first point in the process of how sustainability influenced their career decision (through Route 1) went further to be directly involved in developing novel projects with significant benefits to society, environment and the economy.

Slight differences were also observed in the process of how sustainability topics influence the UK participants’ (Case UK) engagement in engineering and that of Nigerian participants (Case Nigeria). There were also differences in some aspects of this process between both cases, such as the kind of exposure and interest in certain sustainability challenges.

4.2. Interplay of EAID in the Relationship between Sustainability Topics and Women’s Attraction to Engineering—Case UK versus Case Nigeria

First, Figure 3 and Figure 4 reveal that Nigerian women engineers were more exposed to the prevailing sustainability challenges in the country, while UK participants were rather exposed to the impact of engineering through visible, tangible structures and sustainability-themed problem-based course content. Despite Nigeria’s significant natural resources, its numerous sustainability challenges compared to the UK may explain this finding [45]. Additionally, the Nigerian engineering curriculum does not integrate sustainability-themed problem-based content compared with the UK [18,46]. This could explain why the Nigerian participants were mostly exposed and aware of the negative impact of engineering through the numerous sustainability challenges in the country as opposed to the UK participants’ exposure to more of sustainability-themed problem-based courses.

Second, although the same pattern of the EAID process model (Figure 1) was observed for both cases, there were slight differences and two exceptional patterns observed in Case Nigeria. For instance, as depicted in Figure 3 and Figure 4, the EAID process model mostly began with exposure for Case UK, whereas it began with mostly awareness for Case Nigeria. Based on this pattern, the significance of the experiential nature of exposure as opposed to the informational components of awareness was revealed. For example, although Case Nigeria’s EAID process model mostly began with awareness of the negative impact of engineering sustainability practices, an exception was observed with one participant whose process rather began with exposure. The impact of the experiential components of exposure led to the participant’s direct involvement and lastly to interest in further addressing the sustainability challenges she was exposed to. However, this interest waned off due to her country’s unsustainable practices (Section 3.1.3).

This finding is evident in Hidi and Renninger [41], who suggested that “phases of interest development are subject to reversals if there is no opportunity for repeated engagement or support for this interaction is not present.” This means that at the stage where there are no opportunities for the participant to re-engage with related tasks of interest, the interest can “go dormant or even be abandoned” [43]. Following this perspective, this current research finding highlights the importance of the need for engineering educators to continuously engage and involve women in sustainability problem-solving to sustain their interest in studying engineering and practising in the field.

Additionally, since direct involvement is also experiential, the experience of the second participant (Bonia) whose EAID process was slightly different from those of the other participants in Case Nigeria highlights the significance of this experiential nature of exposure and direct involvement in the EAID process model. This participant, whose EAID process model started with a combination of direct involvement and exposure to the reality and tangible mistakes of engineering through a sustainability project, developed a novel tool in her country that addresses environmental sustainability (Section 3.1.4). Likewise, this experiential exposure significance was also observed in another participant in Case UK, who was directly involved in building a novel metro station in Doha with gains across all three sustainability aspects. This finding reinforces the argument for the need for engineering service education and engineers who are involved and skilled with such engineering service to confront pressing global challenges [47].

5. Conclusions

This qualitative study developed a novel EAID process model describing the interaction of exposure, awareness, interest and direct involvement in the relationship between women’s engagement in engineering and sustainability topics. The findings also indicate that women’s choice and engagement in engineering might be influenced through two main routes—either by creating exposure or by raising awareness of engineering role in causing or addressing sustainability challenges. However, irrespective of the preferred route, it is recommended that potential users of the model should adopt the one that would yield better results of attracting and appealing to the interests of more girls in engineering, through either an experiential exposure or informational awareness of the link between sustainability themes and the profession. This becomes important especially in higher education institutions (HEIs), where “difficulties of working with academically unmotivated students” abound [41].

It is also recommended that an early intervention such as exposing girls to relatable impacts of engineering that align with their interests would promote the profession as one to fulfil their aspirations and inform their career decision. In addition, HEIs should incorporate more strategies to create awareness of the support role that the engineering profession provides to disciplines that appeal more to women’s interest, such as medical sciences and healthcare. The significance of this implication is evident in recent times, where young people are showing more interest in pursuing careers such as healthcare, with renowned relevance and contributions to addressing current global challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic [3]. This provides a unique avenue for engineering educators to utilize the opportunities created by such sustainability challenges to create awareness and exposure to the profession’s central role in addressing these issues and attracting more girls to the field.

Furthermore, the fact that Nigerian women engineers were more exposed to the prevailing sustainability challenges in their country, while UK participants experienced the positive impact of engineering through sustainability-themed problem-based course content, implies that Nigeria’s engineering curriculum is deficient in such course content [18]. This presents a potential challenge to the country’s HEIs, as owing to the numerous sustainability challenges prevalent in the country, it becomes important to produce engineers who have both the interests and skills to address these challenges [10,48]. Hence, compared to the prevailing challenges in one’s country, exposure through sustainability-themed course content is likely to not only illustrate the negative impact of engineering practices, but also provide insights into how to reduce such impact. Therefore, more girls who are interested in addressing such issues in addition to the skills gained through sustainability-themed course contents are likely to benefit the country HEIs to advance on diverse gender representation and more graduates who can contribute to addressing its sustainability challenges.

The results of this study also have practical implications for engineering organisations or companies. Specifically, the women engineers who work in companies that provide the enabling environment for them to achieve their sustainability-themed problem-solving aspirations developed novel projects with significant social, economic and environmental sustainability benefits to communities. These organisations with such sustainability agenda and focus encouraged women engineers to be directly involved in addressing these issues. Hence, this implies that more engineering companies with such service orientation should promote these aspects to attract more individuals, including women with such skills and commitment to be involved in confronting the pressing global challenges [47,49].

Likewise, the results show that such direct involvement through sustainability-themed problem-based courses and activities is a crucial strategy for encouraging women’s engagement and girls’ attraction to the profession. The finding indicates that this strategy bridges the gap between what engineers learn and do [3] while demonstrating the role of engineers in delivering sustainable development. This presents a potential opportunity for engineering organisations who have shown concern that HEIs are still not producing sufficient graduates with the skills required to address the challenges in the field [50].

Despite the importance and novelty of this research, there are limitations that should be considered. The background data collected in this study comprise only the participants’ occupations, areas of specialisation and the number of years of practice. Future studies could consider examining participants’ race and social identities to determine if these might also influence their engineering career decisions.

Likewise, although the novel application of the GT approach in this research meant that the research outcome represents the direct experiences of practising women engineers, and as such may possibly appeal to aspiring women engineers, distinctions may exist among women engineers and girls in different countries. As a result, future research could aim to corroborate the EAID process model by conducting a longitudinal study where the decision of girls to engage in engineering is tested over a period using the underlying interactions of the model components. Future research might also apply the EAID process model to boost the motivation and engagement of students in other disciplines that interface with sustainability roles. It is hoped that this current research might guide future studies, leading to the evaluation, acceptance and application of its outcome, which is the novel EAID process model to advance gender diversity and sustainability practices in various disciplines, including engineering.