Women in Engineering: Almost No Gap at University but a Long Way to Go for Sustaining Careers
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This article addressing the gender gap in career development in Engineering and the inter-disciplinarity of approach deserve special attention. The authors were very inspired to choose Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) and SCCT Model, respectively the t-test and the path analysis as research methodology in an attempt to demonstrate that removing gender stereotype threats is as important as providing supports for gender equity. I encourage the authors to continue in this worthwhile endeavour.
In general, the paper is well written and arguments are well made and explained. The overall quality and clarity of the text is very good. Overall, it is a very good article that makes a clearly defined contribution to theory as intended.
My reflections on each section of the article are as follows:
- The Introduction section is too long, needs to be more clear about the specific objectives and contribution of the paper. My suggestion for Section 1. Introduction is to focus on the questions: Why was the research undertaken? What was the purpose of the research and research questions? and to move contextual issues in the Literature review section.
- The Literature review section considers a wide range of interesting material and is generally good, but too short. In my opinion, the Literature review section must be longer than the Introduction.
- The Methods section needs to be improved. You need to state here your research hypotheses and what research methods you use for testing which hypotheses. Also, you need to specify your research limitations even if these are well explained in Discussion.
- The Results and Discussion sections are the strongest and clearest from entire article.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper presents a well-structured deductive argument for findings which explain some of the cognitive factors associated with female uptake of engineering careers in Korea. I recommend the following points for improvement. 1. While the English is understandable and generally quite clear, the paper needs another edit for spelling and grammar. I have highlighted some issues I picked up in the attached file. 2. There are some references that could be brought up to date with the latest research findings on this topic. 3. I would generally concur with the limitations presented but to me the biggest limitation is not with the study design, sampling etc, but with its failure to capture what is happening in the employer space. I think its interesting that males did not see themselves as being particularly dominant, but females could see workforce discrimination quite clearly. That gives a clue to the need for research beyond university contexts to better understand where the blockages are among employers.The issues is much bigger than individual perception, which to some extent you have acknowledged in the introduction, but not picked up in your discussion or conclusion. 4. The conclusion that education is the only vehicle for change is clearly not right. Systems can and will change in response to policy, mandated regulations, incentives and structural changes. You need to consider these possibilities. 5. The issue of whether your sample of paper based vs online surveys is problematic should be pretty easy to resolve. Can you just check to see if there are significant differences in responses between the two data collections?Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The way how to make a balance between work from male and female and their wages is still in the focus of academics, politicians, and practitioners.
In the paper I found just a few errors as follow:
- In the paper, there are mixed quotation styles.
- Source [62] has no citation in the text.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
