Engineering Education for All: Increasing Access to Engineering Education for Men and Women across the World through Distance Learning

For many men and women across the world, distance education has improved access to higher education. Distance education could potentially help bridge the gap that divides the East and the West. A group of highly motivated young men and women from the Middle-East with undergraduate degrees in electrical engineering, computer engineering, and computer science students were given an opportunity to earn a Ph.D. degree from a high ranking American university. These highly motivated men and women then were asked to participate in an online survey that aimed at comparing their perception of online education versus face-to-face education. The result indicated that there was no association between the students’ degree of self-efficacy and feeling of inclusion in online versus face-to-face courses. Moreover, the result indicated that there was no association between gender and self-efficacy regardless of the medium of the choice. KEyWORDS Developing Countries, Distance Education, Engineering, Graduate Level, Higher Education, Nontraditional Students, Women