Gender equality in STEM programs: a proposal to analyse the situation of a university about the gender gap

[EN]According to the Global Gender Gap Report 2020, most of the countries have achieved gender parity in educational attainment. Furthermore, Latin America and Europe have more women than men enrolled in tertiary education. The problem arises when those numbers are analysed by degree studies. There is a gender gap in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), with a low number of women enrolled in those programs and even lower numbers of graduates. The universities have a key role to steer new conceptions and understanding of the females in STEM . The higher education institutions have to define measures and policies to reduce the gender gap in the careers of the future. This work aims to provide a proposal to analyse the gender equality gap in STEM as a first step to define gender equality action plans focused on processes of attraction, access and retention and guidance in STEM programs. The proposal was applied in ten Latin American universities from Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Mexico, and five European universities from Finland, Ireland, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom

The learning curve applied to fire extinguisher training:A comparison among different type of fires

This research contributes to assess the learning process of fire extinguisher training; which is an important analysis for the accurate design of training plans in order to ensure appropriate actions for fire mitigation. The experiment was executed using a fire simulator, 32 subjects participated in the trials for a month. In the results analysis, the data for each type of fire were adjusted with the Wright's Learning Curve model. The subjects' performance in the fire extinguishing training seems improved with experience, and the Wright's Learning Curve demonstrated been an effective tool to describe the process from a time/outcome perspective for each type of fire. On the other hand, the type C fire tends to have a more challenging learning process in contrast with the A and B types. Moreover, the results show the inadequacy of one-time training programs for fire extinguisher handling. Some future research recommendations are given.</p