Gender Gap in Perceived Achievement of Complex Thinking in Engineering Students: A Challenge for STEM Inclusion

This paper is part of the thematic axis Bridging the diversity gap in STEM, specifically in the themes Diversity and inclusion and Gender studies in STEM. Its objective is to share the results of a study conducted on engineering students in their last semester of training, regarding their perception of achievement of the competence of complex thinking. The intention is to have an insight into how students perceive their level of competence and cognitive skills, in order to assess whether there are significant differences based on gender. For this study, a representative convenience sample of graduating candidates from a university institution in western Mexico was taken. Methodologically, descriptive analyses were made considering a validated instrument. In conclusion, it is identified that the level of achievement perception of engineering and science students is high (4.29), being critical thinking the one that yielded the best perception and systemic thinking the lowest. In terms of gender, it is identified that men are those who yielded the best perception in all cases, being the students of Digital Transformation Engineering the best self-evaluated.