The differences among societies in percentage of Ph.D. materials engineers who are members as compared to percentage of all engineers and all materials engineers who are members is suggestive of differing degrees of sophistication in the use of materials in different segments of the engineering enterprise. Table 2.25 has been prepared to study this topic further. The Engineers Register arranges the areas of technology and science into “product groups.” In Table 2.25 the percentage of Ph.D. level materials engineers that the COSMAT survey found in each large and well-defined product group is presented. The total number of materials engineers in each group is also given as an indication of the significance of the statistic. It will be seen that there are three kinds of product groups. One group comprises Construction and Civil Engineering, Machinery and Mechanical Equipment, and Utilities; Ph.D.’s constitute less than a percent of the materials engineers employed in this group. The second group, including Electrical Equipment, Transportation, and Motor Vehicle Transportation, contains a few percent of Ph.D.’s among its materials engineers. The third group, including Aircraft and Space, Ceramics, Chemicals, Computers, Electronic Equipment, and Basic Metals, employs of the order of 10 percent Ph.D.’s among its materials engineers.

It is also important to comment at this point on the way in which choice of sample affects the results of Table 2.24 and, perhaps, of other tables in this series. Only members of a limited selection of societies associated with the EJC are included in the list from which the EJC sample was drawn. There is naturally a tendency for membership in these societies to be emphasized in the results. A case in point is the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE). Only 152 respondents to the Register indicated membership in SPE in the 1969 Survey. However, in a comparable survey in 1964, 952 memberships in SPE were reported by respondents. The difference is a reflection of the fact that the SPE membership list was included in constructing the 1964 sample.

On the other hand, the completeness with which our specialty selection does cover the materials areas among the engineers is illustrated by the following statistic; of 2380 respondents to the survey who indicated membership in the ASM, 2286 are included in our classification of materials engineers.

Table 2.26 presents the principal employment functions of materials engineers. It is seen that these are not very different from the functions of all engineers. A similar statement can be made about supervisory responsibilities of materials engineers; they are essentially the same as most engineers as a whole.

A question concerning professional identification revealed that materials engineers have a slightly more scientific orientation than engineers as a whole. 6.4 percent of materials engineers identified themselves with a scientific discipline (physicist, chemist, geologist, metallurgist) as compared to 4 percent of all engineers.

Table 2.27 shows that 37 percent of all materials engineers received some federal government support for their work. This is somewhat less than the percentage reported by all engineers, 45 percent. Table 2.27 also shows the national programs to which this support is related.