INTEGRATED LEARNING FOR FEMALE STUDENTS IN ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING

This paper examines our new approach to help female students develop their integrated academic skills in the field of electronic and electrical engineering at Hiroshima Institute of Technology, Japan (HIT). There are usually few female students in engineering colleges in Japan, so now the whole country is trying to increase the number of female students who select science subjects at high school and university. To support these projects and stimulate education in engineering for female students, a year ago we created an original project for only female students: Electrys. Electrys provides female students opportunities to study and research a topic of their choice. Examples of topics include electronic and electric devices, circuits, illumination systems, and the internet of things, inside and outside the university. In addition, these events encourage students to give presentations in Japanese, English, and Chinese as their final goals in Electrys. These presentations can target workshops and domestic or international conferences as they belong to laboratories of the university. We report on the outline and significance of Electrys, introducing the first generation of students. The project has brought about the new chain reaction among students. At first, we were concerned the project might be a burden on students since it was additional work beyond regular classes. We found more success than we had expected. Furthermore, we find this a good flow to stimulate female students and our whole departments. We are continuing to tune our systematic approach to education for female students by analyzing their final data and questionnaire results.