Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and 

 Methodology 



Laboratories selected were: 



Brookhaven National Laboratory, 

 En\ironmental Measurements Laboratory, 

 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 

 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 

 Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, and 

 Savannah River National Laboratory. 



To gather nationwide information on women's participation and 

 experiences in mathematics, engineering, and science, we analyzed data 

 from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), the 

 Begiiming Postsecondary Students (BPS) Longitudinal Study, and the 

 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF) from Education and the 

 Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED), and the Survey of Doctorate 

 Recipients (SDR) from NSF. We also reviewed Uterature to obtain 

 information about women in the sciences and issues they face preparing 

 for and pursuing careers in the sciences. In addition, we spoke with 

 practitioners regarding promising practices to promote the participation of 

 women in mathematics, engineering, and science. To assess the rehability 

 of the various Education and NSF data sources, we reviewed 

 documentation on how the data were collected and performed electronic 

 tests to look for missing or out-of-range values. In addition, we reviewed 

 the methodology of studies aind reports using generally accepted social 

 science principles as a basis for including their results in our report. Based 

 on these reviews and tests, we found the data and studies sufficiently 

 reliable for our purposes. We conducted our review from July 2003 

 through June 2004 in accordance with generally accepted goverrmient 

 auditing standards. 



Page 31 GAO-04-639 Gender Issues 



