Delve into the challenges of career retention among women engineer: the application of the modified Delphi technique

Zaliza Hanapi

Abstract

Women can never be separated from the issue of family commitment in their careers after marriage. The involvement of female engineer shows that it starts to become less and less as the years went by due to the married women facing more conflicts and challenges when they are trying to have a balance between their career and family. Career challenges are anything that prevents future movements from developing or making any progress or any incidents and conditions that make the career development difficult to move forward. Therefore, this study aims to obtain a consensus or an expert agreement regarding career challenges among female engineer who are married. The technique used in this study to identify career challenges is the Modified Delphi Technique. This technique is very suitable and appropriate for exploring new views and opinions taken from a sevenselected panel of experts in an interview with the researchers. With the results obtained from the interview and the approvals from the seven-selected panel of experts, the researchers construct a questionnaire instrument in which it consists of the element of challenges and the items for each challenge. Furthermore, this technique was carried out for three rounds, which started with the expert panel interviews and was followed by a series of a questionnaire survey in the second and third rounds. This cycle of Modified Delphi Technique was then halted when the agreement value or a consensus had been reached by all the panel of experts based on the analysis of Interquartile range (IQR) that has been made

References

1. Alaloul, W. S., Liew, M. S., & Zawawi, N. A. W. (2015). Delphi Technique Procedures: A New Perspective in Construction Management Research. Applied Mechanics and Materials, 802(March 2017), 661–667. https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.802.661

2. Amin, S. & P. Rameli, M. F. (2014). Fenomena Kekurangan Tenaga Kerja Wanita Berpendidikan dan Berkemahiran di Malaysia. PERKEM ke-9 (2014) 269 – 277

3. Avella, J. R. (2016). Delphi panels: Research design, procedures, advantages, and challenges. International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 11, 305-321. Retrieved from http://www.informingscience.org/Publications/3561

4. Balakrishnan, B., Foon, S. L., & Azman, M. N. A (2014). Persepsi Pelajar Perempuan Terhadap Program dan Profesion Dalam Bidang Kejuruteraan: Kajian Kes Di Malaysia dan Jepun. Jurnal Teknologi (Sciences & Engineering). 72:1 (2015) 1–6.

5. Biden, N. & Kamin, Y. (2013). Implikasi Penjenamaan Semula Sekolah Menengah Vokasional (SMV) Kepada Kolej Vokasional (KV). 2nd International Seminar on Quality and Affordable Education (ISQAE 2013), (Isqae), 316–323. https://doi.org/10.1002/jbm.a.31291 Board of Engineers Malaysia Annual Report (2017)

6. Clayton, M.J. (1997) Delphi: a technique to harness expert opinion for critical decision-making tasks in education, Educational Psychology, 17, pp. 373–386. Economic Transformation Programme Annual Report (2014).

7. Fouad, A. N., Singh, R., Fitzpatrick, E. M., & Liu, J. P. (2012). Stemming The Tide: Why Women Leave Engineering. Women In Engineering 2012 Report.

8. Grime, M. M., & Wright, G. (2016). Delphi Method. In P. Brandimarte, B. Everitt, G. Molenberghs, W. Piegorsch, & F. Ruggeri (Eds.), Wiley StatsRef : Statistics Reference Online (pp. 1-6). New York, N.Y.

9. Grisham,T. (2009) "The Delphi technique: a method for testing complex and multifaceted topics", International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, Vol. 2 Issue: 1, pp.112-130, https://doi.org/10.1108/17538370910930545

10. Hsu, C. & Sandford, B. A. (2007). The Delphi Technique: Making Sense of Consensus. Practical Assessment Research & Evaluation, 12(10). Available online: http://pareonline.net/getvn.asp?v=12&n=10

11. Linstone, H.A. and Turoff, M. (2002) The Delphi Method: Techniques and Applications, http://www.is.njit.edu/pubs/ delphibook/index.ht

12. Nashir, I., Mustapha, R., & Yusoff, A. (2015). Delphi Technique: Enhancing Research in Technical and Vocational Education. Journal of Technical Education and Training, 7(december 2015), 12–23. https://doi.org/10.1109/ISANP.2017.8228803

13. Nworie, J. (2011). Using the delphi technique in educational technique in educational technology research. TechTrends, 55(5), 24-30.

14. Peck R. & Devore J.L. 2007. Statistics: The Exploration & Analysis of Data. 6th Ed. Pacific Grove, CA:Duxbury Press.

15. Rowe, G. and Wright, G. (2001) Expert opinions in forecasting: role of the Delphi technique, in Principles of Forecasting: A Handbook for Researchers and Practitioners (ed J.S. Armstrong), Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, MA.

16. Snyder, K. (2011). A Study of Motherhood and Perceived Career Satisfaction of Women in Student Affairs. (Electronic Thesis or Dissertation). Retrieved from https://etd.ohiolink.edu/

17. Thangaratinam, S., & Redman, C. W. (2005). The Delphi technique. The Obstetrician & Gynaecologist, 7(2), 120–125. https://doi.org/10.1576/toag.7.2.120.27071

18. Tunku Ahmad, T. L., Wan Mustapha, W. K., Yusof, N., Zakaria, N., & Wan Mazlan, W. N. A. (2015). Perangkaan Wanita, Keluarga & Masyarakat Malaysia. Kementerian Pembangunan Wanita Keluarga dan Masyarakat (KPWKM) 2015.