Women's Leadership Aspiration Research Internship
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Authors
Dailey, Shayla Elizabeth
Issue Date
2021-11-01
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
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Abstract
This summer I was afforded the opportunity to work under Dr. Karyn Boatwright as her primary research assistant and co-author of her manuscript concerning women’s leadership aspirations and the inquiry into the internal (psychological) factors that may be preventing women from filling the gender gap in higher level leadership positions across career fields. Over the course of the summer, I worked on a daily basis alongside Dr. Boatwright, in-person and virtually, completing Phase I of her qualitative longitudinal study. This included helping her complete her mostly-written manuscript over the results of her initial experiment. In these results, Dr. Boatwright examines the responses of 19 undergraduate women to five questions regarding effective leadership styles and experiences in leadership posed to them in the spring of each year (and also in the fall of their first year) throughout a series of five interviews during their time at college. Dr. Boatwright’s results add to the growing field of research on women’s leadership aspirations, while her article specifically addresses the primary barriers college women face in obtaining (and maintaining) aspirations for higher level leadership positions throughout their college experience. Further, her discussion offers suggestions to professors on how they can help eradicate the problem of low leadership aspirations, as well as pedagogical strategies to promote women’s balanced leadership style and to inspire more women to seek elite leadership roles. Through many meetings with Dr. Boatwright over the summer and an additional deal of time spent alone, I familiarized myself with the manuscript and the important studies she had used in her previous research on the topic. During daily meetings in her home lab, I continually ensured the reference list was both consistent with the manuscript and correctly formatted in adherence with APA formatting. I was also in charge of all APA formatting throughout the rest of the manuscript as well. Another task of mine was to find current statistics from different sources (including government databases and other organizations) on the number of women in various positions of leadership. Additionally, I assisted in locating quotes to be used as supportive evidence in the results section of the manuscript and wrote a small addition that was included in the final version. The other part of my SIP involved working in a dual leadership style under Mona Griesberg and in collaboration with student research assistants on Phase II of Dr. Boatwright’s study. The dual leadership process worked in that Dr. Boatwright’s previous research leadership training with Mona was able to inform Mona’s training of myself as a leader in preparation for a future date when I will lead my fellow student research assistants as the head of our team. Phase II is currently ongoing and engages research assistants in tracking down our past participants from Phase I of the study to re-interview them with an updated edition of the same questions from the original interviews. We also added a few extra questions concerning intersectionality and family planning in hopes to identify additional barriers in women’s leadership aspirations, as well as a questionnaire to investigate the phenomenon of imposter syndrome within our participants. We have been fortunate enough to have conducted interviews with four past participants so far, and I’m thrilled to have been given the opportunity to interview a past participant who is now a successful head and neck surgeon and doubles as an assistant professor. It was both inspiring and empowering to hear this participant speak about her success in her budding career. I also saw a very human side to her as she spoke about her internal struggles with leadership despite her current achievements. Although Phase II of the research is ongoing, my SIP was officially completed when Dr. Boatwright and I submitted the manuscript from Phase I to the Journal of College Student Development for review.
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37 p.
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