JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

The principles of gender equality are integral to the goals, targets and indicators of all stainable development goals (SDG). Higher education institutes (HEIs) can be powerful agents for promoting gender equality, diversity, and inclusion, not only in the higher education context but in society as a whole. In order to address and overcome gender inequality in the higher education environment, experts posits that change needs to occur from day one of the student’s academic experience. To this end training is required. A preliminary review of the literature indicates that multiple gender equality-based training programs or initiatives for students have been designed and evaluated in second and third level education settings. Examples of educational activities undertaken include delivery of didactic teaching, participation in a face-to-face collaboration project, site visits, case studies and coaching. Yet, our initial search indicated that, to date, a comprehensive review collating the available evidence on gender equality training for third level students has not yet been carried out. Our review seeks to fill this gap and identify and explore the existing literature on gender equality training interventions for third level students, with a particular emphasis on training content, methodology and outcome evaluation. The scoping review will be structured using the Arskey & O’Malley’s five-stage framework and will consider empirical research and other relevant published works that address gender equality training. Systematic searches will be carried out in six research databases and the grey literature using key search terms. An inclusion and exclusion criteria has been defined and a data charting tool created to methodically extract information from selected literature. The free web software Rayyan will be employed for primary screening where each reference will be screened in duplicate first by title, then abstract and finally by full paper. This review forms part of the LIBRA (Balance) study and has received peer reviewed grant funding from the Irish Higher Education Authority (HEA). LIBRA aims to use simulation based education (SBE) to develop a gender equality leadership training program for student leaders in higher education. The findings will be summarized in tabular form and a narrative synthesis This review seeks to inform curriculum design by reporting on the gender equality enabling skills and leadership skills necessary to foster gender equality. This paper should inform recommendations and catalyze future research in this rapidly evolving area