Perceptions of Female Student Pilots - Article Example

Collegiate aviation programs and their under representation of female Students: a national study of the perceptions of female student pilots Depperschmidt, L, C. (2008). Collegiate aviation programs and their under representation of female students: a national study of the perceptions of female student pilots. books.google.co.ke. Retrieved from http://books.google.co.ke/books/about/Collegiate_Aviation_Programs_and_Their_U.html?id=CnmFb5Vnq9IC&redir_esc=y Chapter 1: Introduction A good amount of background information has been presented. The author is attempting to establish whether Collegiate aviation programs and their under-representation of female students are a concern to the aviation industry. It is a known fact over time that males have dominated the aviation industry. As the number of female pilots has been rising over time, they still do not make up a significant percentage within the aviation industry. Despite government intervention on encouraging females to join the aviation industry, women make up only 6 percent of pilots that are licensed. The lack of sufficient female pilots is a very vital concern that the aviation industry must study and research. A good starting point for the lack of female pilots can be by having academic programs of flight in which future pilots are introduced to the industry of aviation. Since these programs are considered a starting place for pilots in the aviation industry, environmental surroundings must be taken into account as to the low ratio of representation of female pilots. The purpose here is to now carry out a national research of the perceptions of a female student pilots in the aviation industry. If these academic flight programs have the potential to improve the enrollment of female flight students, this program then would create a ripple effect in the industry and would help increase female pilots in the aviation industry. This study can be considered as a quantitative study. The author is trying to find out why there is a shortage in female pilots. With the usage of study methodologies, this case is researchable, and the author feels that it offers vital information. This study’s limitations were centered on sensitization of the program. The author has provided a five-chapter layout. Chapter 2: Literature Review This review literature is fairly comprehensive. The author gives the main outlines as well as elaborating on the research and literature findings where need be. The aviation industry historically has not been a career for women. All through history, women have been turned away while male pilots have sabotaged those that succeeded. Despite these constraints, a number of brave women have broken through the barriers with personal determination and passion in their quest to fly. It can be said that women have contributed to the aviation industry by way of design and flight. The author tries to expand further on certain key points by providing different outlines regarding the low ratio of female pilots. Despite all the setbacks faced by the female aviators, professional organizations have come up in support of women in aviation, and furthermore these same women have made contributions as well as achievements as individuals. The success of most women in aviation has been due to the contribution of several groups (Depperschmidt, 2008). These groups generally contribute by way of funding towards hundreds of educational programs, which include aerospace workshop, touring of airports for school going children, fear flight clinics for passengers, and seminars for flight instructor and aviation trainings. They also offer scholarships grants for various fields in aviation. That being said, a shortage in pilots remains. A shortage in pilots is giving less experienced pilots a chance at flying passenger aircrafts. With the ongoing shortage in pilots, most airlines have lowered their level of experience requirements for new pilots. Most aviation experts feel that lowering the minimum requirements for flight experience will produce unsafe environments where inexperienced pilots will always be reacting to emergencies. Therefore, as the ratio of female pilots remains quite low in the aviation industry, which has a chance of creating negative opinion towards flight careers for female pilots within the industry? It is evident that in fields that are dominated by males, sex stereotyping exists. This creates barriers for women that operate in limited ways. As the continuity of negative opinion towards female pilots continues, it creates reluctance for females to pursue careers in the aviation field (Depperschmidt, 2008). This effect can create repetitive cycles, which ends up leading to continued lower ratio of female pilots. This then becomes a problem that must be researched on within the aviation industry to understand ways to reverse the situation of low female representation. The author continues to point out that although the present literature has not been sufficient in understanding pilot perceptions towards females in understanding the low ratio. At this point, barrier identification is needed as well as other possible concerns that propagate the low ratio in academic flight programs; hence, this research will focus on female students’ personal perception of their aviation programs. This research could provide insight to addressing the low ratio problem. As a result, the academic flight program might provide changes to neutralize the identified barriers and eventually increase female representation within flight programs; and eventually industry wide. At this point, the author formulates research questions for achieving this series of studies. 1. Do female students consider the low ratio of women is of concern in academic aviation programs? 2. Do female students consider academic motivations geared towards women within the aviation program? 3. Do female students consider negative remarks due to gender existence? 4. Do female students consider their aviation program is well represented by other women in the industry? With these questions formulated, the author now seeks to find the importance, assumptions, and limitations of this study. Should the trend of low female representation stay unchanged, the women’s role in the aviation industry will continue. In addition, should the low female representation continue, a good number of females will be quite reluctant to seek careers in the aviation industry (Depperschmidt, 2008). Nevertheless, if this setback can be reversed then the number of trained females within the industry will significantly grow and increase overall individual qualities in the aviation industry. The findings of this study research have the possibility of benefiting the aviation industry and female students involved in the study. The data gathered by this research will be used as a foundation to facilitate more discussion as well as provide the community of aviation a platform to address issues related to female students. Although the research study was restricted to female students receiving training in academic flight programs, the study assumptions did not review female students getting flight training from non-academic training tools. The study research assumes that directors and managers of academic flight programs only administer research instruments for undergraduate female students of aviation that are enrolled in flight training and no other aviation degrees like safety, avionics, security, management, etc. The study research also assumes that the female students involved would respond to the research instrument with honesty, and without being pressured. While the managers and directors limitation were grounded on voluntarism of each academic flight program within the study. The logistics involved in gathering the female students in a given place and time for administration of the research instrument imposed limitations to the study. Another limitation to the study was the reluctance of respondents to precisely detailing existing barriers in the presence of program flight managers (Depperschmidt, 2008). If however, a female student administered the research instrument, a possibility of pressure on the student to show their flight program in inevitable. In this case, respondents will feel accountable to other female students if barriers were created. Therefore, female students may feel pressured to not acknowledge the existence of negative barriers that could lead to some form of disciplinary action. The author does a recommendable job of giving more details as to the low ratio of female pilots. Chapter 3: Methodology This case study is both quantitative and qualitative and the guidelines of this methodology are descriptive and use the instrument of research authored by the researcher. It was administered to both public and private universities. This study is meant to bring about information as well as perceptions relating to the low ratio of female students in the academic aviation programs and act as a foundation for future research. The author starts the study cases by providing a number of questions followed by descriptions. The instruments objective is to answer the below research question: 1. Do female students consider the low ratio of women is of concern in academic aviation programs? 2. Do female students consider academic motivations geared towards women within the aviation program? 3. Do female students consider negative remarks due to gender existence? 4. Do female students consider their aviation program is well represented by other women in the industry? The author now uses statistical descriptiveness in developing and interpreting the research data. Descriptive research comprises evaluating the attitudes, preferences, practices, and interests, concerns, primarily through collected questionnaires, interviews, and observations.This study sample was drawn from that of female students of aviation that took part in academic training flight program. The flight programs of which were the University Aviation Association members were solicited for the study. The instrument of research used in this study was made by the researcher to quantitatively as well as qualitatively view the perception of female students and gather personal data in relation to their flight programs. This instrument will gather demographic data describing every female student and evaluating their perception about financial opportunities to flight costs, recruitment, as well as retention of female students, gender prevalence barriers, existence of faculty females and flight instructors that are certified (Depperschmidt, 2008). The instrument of research that was created for the study was a structured questionnaire comprising of two sections: demographic data, which included multiple-choice questions and yes /no, and then the likert scale interpretative questions. The first part of the research instrument required information related to female students completing the survey and academic flight program while the second part of the questionnaire of the Likert-scale questions were ordinal measure patterns choices ranging from (1) Strongly Agree, (2) Agree, (3)Disagree, to (4) Strongly Disagree. The aim of these questions was to have insight into the perception of female students in relation to their experience in flight programs. Chapter 4: Findings The findings here are based on the completed research instrument and were comprehensive. The data presented is based on the different sections of the instrument. Firstly, the participants’ responses to the questions concerning the academic flight programs described the demographics of the female students involved and provided information concerning the participating academic flight program. Secondly, the participants responses to the questions concerning the perception of the academic flight program showed the perception of female students based on the Likert type scale. Thirdly, the research instrument analyzed personal remarks written by the respondents (Depperschmidt, 2008). The research invited participation from different academic flight programs, and received a 50 percent response with a good number of respondents being women of which a couple of 100 female students completed the research instrument. The female students raised many issues but overall they agreed that the research was a revelation where they could air out their opinions as well as complainants without feeling pressured, and furthermore they could fellow woman who was in an administrative position. Despite positive feedback, a number of female students still quit, and the main reason for this according to one female respondent was that it has nothing to do with gender barriers but everything to do with self-confidence. Why this is so, is because females are compared to males in terms of skillset and knowledge and thus making females less confident. Chapter 5: Summary, Conclusions, Discussion, and Recommendations The summary provided an excellent outlook with easy to understand explanations. All the points were clear. The discussion was appropriate and the author addressed all key issues. In this case study no more research was needed to fully understand why there is a low ratio of female pilots. While, women make up a small percentage in the aviation industry, the number of women has steadily risen but, not to the expectations of the aviation’s industry. It is said that women are about 2 percent of the aviation industry. The research study concerning the low ratio of female students within the aviation program points out that the existence of barriers is a major contributing factor. Therefore, by comprehension of the female students perception, the study endeavored to identify the barriers that exist within the industry. Therefore, with a better comprehension of what barriers are contributing to the low ratio of female students, action can be taken and applied to reassure that more women should seek careers in piloting. Regarding data collection from the research tool, the low ratio of female students at academic aviation programs should be considered a concern for flight programs. However, they might be evidence of alertness as well as an action to get rid of the low ratio of female students, the enrollment of female students remains low as shown in the demographic data. Probably the low ratio of female students at the academic level could be due to other factor other than just barriers. One factor is the male domination within the industry of which can be very discouraging to the female students another factor is that the industry simply just does not appeal to women. Then again, there is the concept of the aviation industry being curriculum being a strain to complete, the workload from the classrooms then on completion of course, there is the element of competing for jobs with male counterparts. It is only strenuous, high-pressured and need commitment. Hence, we can conclusively say, the case study layout was logically based and the author recommends that they are no need for a further detailed research. Read More