ON THE GENDER ORIENTATION OF THE PRODUCT DESIGN TASK

This study highlights the potential effect of the gender orientation of the product design task on the performance of design teams with different gender compositions. Results of an experiment conducted during Spring 2001 and Spring 2002 semesters at the Pennsylvania State University are also presented. For the experiment, two sections of the Introduction to Engineering Design course (ED&G 100) were used for each semester. During this course, four-student project teams work on two design projects over a 16-week semester. Design projects focus on product improvement or solution designs. Design team’s gender composition, average of team members’ cumulative grade point average (GPA), design project topic, average contribution level and the meeting time for the class were investigated for their effects on the performance of design teams via a multiple regression study. 64.7% of the variation in the data set was accounted for by the generated regression equation.