| Quantitative data collection
A. Online Survey
This was carried out through an online survey questionnaire that was circulated via email and other digital platforms such as WhatsApp. The questionnaire had various parts:
Part A - Participants characteristics
This section mainly collected demographic details such as age, gender, nationality, residence, marital status, income, highest level of education completed, year of study, supervision and mentoship relationship, field of study in STEM (Science, Technology, Enginnering and Mathematics), mode of funding of postgraduate degree,
Part B - Status of Gender equality
This section collected information on students enrollment and graduation in masters and PhD in STEM looking at gender distribution,
Part C - Factors that contribute to participation of women in STEM
This section collected information on the factors or situations encountered while pursuing career in STEM in your specific discipline
Part D - Strategies for Optimizing Women's Engagement in STEM
This section collected information on the strategies can maximize engagement of women in STEM training PhD level and subsequent careers
Part E - Effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on women's progression
In this section collected information on COVID-19 pandemic affect on research progress or deadline for submission of thesis, COVID-19 pandemic affect on current research funding, COVID-19 pandemic caused researchers to work from home, working from affected progress in studies, any direct responsibilities caring for children, number of children being taken care of, change of domestic work responsibilities since the COVID-19 outbreak, change of domestic work responsibilities since the COVID-19 outbreak on studies, COVID-19 pandemic affect on access to these research tools which inlude: Computer or laptop, Reliable Internet, Assistive Technology, Laboratory equipment, University Library, Archives/special collections and Access to patients/research participants. It als collected information on: any benefits to COVID-19 pandemic for your work, some ways one thinks their supervisor or line manager could support or help one manage the impacts of COVID-19 on studies
The questionnaire was developed in English and was latertranslated into French to accommodate the French speaking countries i.e Burundi and Rwanda. The French questionnaire was backtlanslated to English to ensure the questions still maintained their original meaning. This work was done by an external consultant and the French questionnaires were reviewed by the research assistant from Burundi and tested among postgraduate students in Light University. |
