– The results show that the reform increased university enrollment rates for both genders.
-The reform increased students’ willingness to enroll at university for males and females alike. The reform effect of university enrollment can be assessed as meaningful with 1.3 and 1.2 percentage points for females and males, respectively.
– With regard to choosing STEM as college major, the authors find a
robust positive effect of the high school curriculum reform on males.
– While the results for males indicate that the reform made them more like to choose a STEM major on a statistically significant level, this is not true for females.
– A likely mechanism for the gender difference in major choices is the underlying preferences of men and women.
Current Selections
ClearThe effects of a high school curriculum reform on university enrollment and the choice of college major
STEM Career Aspirations in Black, Hispanic, and White Ninth-grade Students
– There were significant race by gender differences in students’ education and STEM occupational plans.
– Race and gender differences exsist in perceived cost utility and efficacy of education and occupation outcomes.
– Depending on the definition of STEM careers operationalized in the analysis, variation can be observed in the impact of gender, while the role of the expectancy-value constructs remains largely consistent across multiple definitions of STEM careers.
– While expectancy-value constructs such as utility, interest, and attainment value are significantly related to the STEM career plans of White students, fewer significant relationships between expectancy-value constructs and the STEM career plans of Black and Hispanic students were identified.
Discovery Orientation, Cognitive Schemas, and Disparities in Science Identity in Early Adolescence
– Gender and race/ethnicity are associated with science identity but not with discovery orientation.
– The positive association between discovery orientation and science identity is mediated by science interest, importance, and reflected appraisal.
– There are statistically significant differences in science interest between groups. Science interest is higher among white boys than for minority girls. Overall, science importance, perceived science ability, and science reflected appraisal means are also fairly high, particularly compared with science other-ID and science self-ID.
– Science importance is higher among white and minority boys than for white and minority girls. Perceived science ability is higher among white than minority students. White boys and girls have higher scores than minority boys and girls on the questions about parents and teachers, giving them positive messages about their science performance (reflected appraisal).
– White boys have significantly higher science other-ID than all other groups, while only white boys and minority girls differ significantly on science self-ID.
Gendered Choices of STEM Subjects for Matriculation Are Not Driven by Prior Differences in Mathematical Achievement
– Gender streaming among STEM fields appears already in secondary school.
– Girls are under-represented in physics, IT and advanced mathematics.
– This pattern is not driven by gender differences in prior achievement in numeracy.
– Socio-economic disadvantage has a greater adverse effect on boys than on girls.
– There is significantly less gender streaming among STEM fields in all-girls schools.
– Students with a language background other than English choose STEM fields with greater frequency than other students, reflecting their comparative advantage, while exhibiting more markedly gendered subject choices, indicating a role for cultural factors.
An Advisor Like Me: Does Gender Matter?
– Gender congruence in the student-adviser relationship is particularly helpful for academically weak students and students without STEM-orientation.
– Gender congruence has no significant impact on students with STEM-orientation regardless of whether their high-school GPAs are below or above the median.
– For students without STEM orientation, gender congruence helps students with below-median high school GPA improve their student outcomes both on the extensive and intensive margins, while helping students with above-median high school GPA improve their outcomes only on the extensive margin.
-The authors find that gender congruence in the student-adviser relationship has a positive and significant effect on the odds of retention and on cumulate GPA upon graduation.
– The authors uncover that much of the gender congruence effect
on the extensive margin tends to be concentrated in the freshman and sophomore years, while the gender congruence effect on the intensive margin is less immediate and shows up only in cumulative GPA upon graduation.
– Student-adviser gender congruence is found to work differently for students with different backgrounds and interests.
– Gender congruence has no significant impact on students with STEM-orientation regardless of whether their high-school GPAs are below or above the median.
Developing a STEM Identity Among Young Women: A Social Identity Perspective
– The vast majority of the literature reviewed underlined how challenging it was for female students to identify with STEM because the social environment provided a variety of signals that women do not belong to STEM and do not embody STEM prototypes.
– Although boys tended to have higher STEM career interest overall, girls with higher STEM interest and who belonged to a mixed-gender group of friends had the highest STEM career interest scores among their female peers. In contrast, girls who belonged to primarily female friend groups and perceived their friend group to not be supportive of STEM had the lowest STEM career interest scores in the sample.
– Being in a class with more male peers who held these gendered biases negatively predicted intent to major in computer science and engineering. In contrast, being in a class with confident female peers positively predicted intent to major in computer science and engineering.
– Female students rated themselves as having lower abilities than their male counterparts.
– White female students were more likely to major in STEM in college if they felt competent in high school math.
– Young women are operating in an environment where parents, peers, and teachers think and say that they do not belong in STEM and their abilities are challenged even when they are academically successful.
– Young women experience challenges to their participation and inclusion when they are in STEM settings.
Identifying Taiwanese Teachers’ Perceived Self-efficacy for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Knowledge
-Male teachers outperformed female teachers in each dimension
of the survey.
-Teachers’ self-efficacy in synthesized knowledge of STEM had two mediating effects. One was in the relationship between self-efficacy in engineering design and attitudes toward STEM education. The other was in the relationship between self-efficacy in Mathematical Thinking and Attitudes toward STEM education. Displaying higher self-efficacy in Engineering Design or Mathematical Thinking is not sufficient to positively predict their attitudes toward STEM education. It is having teachers with higher self-efficacy in the synthesized knowledge of STEM that matters.
-Taiwan teachers tend to have relatively high self-efficacy in terms of their Mathematical Thinking knowledge.
-Taiwan teachers seem to manifest favorable Attitudes regarding STEM education.
-Twain teachers have relatively low confidence in their Engineering Design knowledge.
– Teachers’ Scientific Inquiry and Technology Use did not relate to their self-efficacy in Synthesized Knowledge of STEM and Attitudes toward STEM education.
– Only when teachers demonstrate higher confidence in combining technology use, engineering design, and mathematical thinking into a single learning topic of science in many ways will they believe in the positive impact of STEM education on students.
– When designing teachers’ professional development, the educational authorities concerned should be very intentional in facilitating teachers’ understanding of concepts and processes that are applied through engineering design and mathematical thinking activities.
Threats and Supports to Female Students’ Math Beliefs and Achievement
– While controlling for prior achievement and race, gendered differential treatment was negatively associated with math beliefs and achievement, whereas relevant math instruction was positively associated with these outcomes.
– Gendered differential treatment by teachers in the 8th grade negatively related to student math importance and math grade within the same year.
– Gendered differential treatment by teachers in the 11th-grade was negatively related to 11th-grade SCMA.
– In 8th and 11th grade, relevant math instruction was positively related to students’ math importance and SCMA
– 8th-grade and 11th grade relevant math instruction had an indirect effect upon math importance via self-concept of math ability.
– Self-concept of math ability in the 8th grade partially mediated the relationship between 8th-grade relevant instruction and self-
concept of math ability in the 11th-grade.
– Maryland Math Achievement scores in the 9th grade partially mediated the relationship between 8th-grade gendered differential treatment and self-concept of math ability in the 11th grade.
Race and gender differences in how sense of belonging influences decisions to major in STEM
– The authors found that white men were most likely to report a sense of belonging whereas women of color were the least likely.
– Representation within one’s STEM sub-discipline, namely biology versus the physical sciences, impacts sense of belonging for women.
– Four key factors were found to contribute to sense of belonging for all students interviewed: interpersonal relationships, perceived competence, personal interest, and science identity.
– The authors findings indicate that students who remain in STEM majors report a greater sense of belonging than those who leave STEM.
– Students from underrepresented groups are less likely to
feel they belong.
– Both race and gender moderate the experiences that impact sense of belonging for science students.
– Women of color reported the feeling a sense of belonging less frequently than any demographic group.
– Lack of belonging reported by men is primarily experienced by men of color
The Gender-Equality Paradox in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education
-Girls performed similarly to or better than boys in science in two of every three countries.
-In nearly all countries, more girls appeared capable of college-level STEM study than had enrolled.
-Paradoxically, the sex differences in the magnitude of relative academic strengths and pursuit of STEM degrees rose with increases in national gender equality. An explanation of this paradox that the authors offer is that “the liberal mores in these cultures, combined with smaller financial costs of foregoing a STEM path, amplify the influence of intraindividual academic strengths. The result would be the differentiation of the academic foci of girls and boys during secondary education and later in college, and across time, increasing sex differences in science as an academic strength and in graduation with STEM degrees.”
-In 97% of the countries, boys’ intraindividual strength in science was (significantly) larger than that of girls.
-In all countries, girls’ intraindividual strength in reading was larger than that of boys, while boys’ intraindividual strength in mathematics was larger than that of girls.
-The gap between boys’ science achievement and girls’ reading achievement relative to their mean academic performance was near universal.
-Boys’ science self-efficacy was higher than that of girls in 58% of the countries.
-Boys expressed a stronger broad interest in science than girls in 76% of the countries
-Boys reported more joy in science than girls in 43% of the countries.
-Countries with lower levels of gender equality had relatively more women among STEM graduates than did more gender-equal countries.
-The sex differences in academic strengths and attitudes toward science correlated with the STEM graduation gap.
The Relationship of STEM Attitudes and Career Interest
-The authors findings reinforce prior research that students across key demographic factors perceive biological/clinical and physical science career paths differently, resulting in two career clusters.
-The relationship of mathematics attitudes to career
interest varied by STEM career cluster.
-Findings were supportive of the conclusion that students’ attitudes towards STEM careers are not static over their primary and
secondary grades, stabilizing and leveling during their secondary years.
-Gender showed significantly different interest levels for the two career clusters: males higher for physical sciences and females higher for biological/clinical sciences.
-Racial/ethnic disparity in STEM career interests can be seen more readily in physical sciences and engineering than in the biological sciences.
-The authors’ work reinforces findings that students, as young as elementary grades, are forming attitudinal associations between their academic and life experience and future STEM careers.
Fighting for Desired Versions of a Future Self: How Young Women Negotiated STEM-Related Identities in the Discursive Landscape of Educational Opportunity
Authors illustrate the local struggles that young women of color at two high schools in the same school district engaged in to construct and maintain STEM-related identities in the context of their high school lives. In particular, authors focus on the local discourses and practices of the school learning environments within and against which four of the young women in the larger study engaged in STEM identity work.
The "Exceptional" Physics Girl: A Sociological Analysis of Multimethod Data from Young Women Aged 10-16 to Explore Gendered Patterns of Post-16 Participation
This article applies Bourdieusian and Butlerian conceptual lenses to qualitative and quantitative data collected as part of a wider longitudinal study of students’ science and career aspirations age 10-16.
Student–Teacher Ethno-Racial Matching and Reading Ability Group Placement in Early Grades
– Overall, 68% of students in the kindergarten sample and 69% of first grade students were assigned to teachers who share their ethno-racial identity.
– Overall, 38% of kindergarten and 71% in first-grade classes use ability grouping for reading.
– 27% of African American kindergartners were placed in low ability groups compared with 25% of Latino/a kindergartners and 18% of White kindergarten students.
– Around 44% of African American and 46% of Latino/a first graders were placed in low ability groups compared with 37% of White first graders.
– Having a same-race teacher has no direct and independent effect on student placement in higher ability groups in the kindergarten.
– By first grade, placement with same-race teachers has a strong positive and significant effect on Latino/a students’ ability group placement and a marginally positive effect on African American students’ ability group placement.
– Once previous ability group placement is controlled for, placement with same-race teachers continue to be a positive and significant predictor of Latino/a students’ ability group placement in the first grade.
– Teachers’ perceptions about students’ learning abilities are influenced to a certain extent by student–teacher ethno-racial congruence resulting in significant postive effects on higher group placements in kindergarten and first grade.
– Both African American and Latino/a students are significantly less likely to be placed in higher reading ability groups compared with White students.
– Male kindergartners are significantly less likely to be placed in higher ability groups.
– The higher the percentage of African American students in class, the more likely students will be placed in higher ability groups.
– Students from higher SES are more likely to be placed in higher ability groups. However, as the average classroom SES increases, students are significantly less likely to be placed in higher ability groups.
Undergraduate STEM Instructors’ Teacher Identities and Discourses on Student Gender Expression and Equity
The authors investigated how STEM faculty teaching first-year engineering courses constructed teacher identities and responsibilities. Our research questions included: What discourses do faculty use to construct the meaning of student gender expression in their classroom? How do faculty discursively position themselves in relation to gender equity? What teacher identities and responsibilities do they construct through these discourses?
Student and School SES, Gender, Strategy Use, and Achievement
– Schools, as opposed to families, may be the primary vehicle for developing effective strategy use practices for students and thus,
targeted interventions may be particularly useful for male students
attending low SES schools.
– One learning strategy (i.e., control strategies) was found to relate significantly and positively to achievement.
– These strategies were used more by females and students attending higher SES schools.
– Males and students attending lower SES schools tended to use a greater number of learning strategies that did not relate to achievement, including memorization and elaboration.
– Strategies that did not relate to achievement were used more
frequently by students from higher SES families.
Venus, Mars, and Math: Gender, Societal Affluence, and Eighth Graders' Aspirations for STEM
To assess the relationship between societal affluence and the gender gap in STEM aspirations.
The Roots of STEM Achievement: An Analysis of Persistence and Attainment in STEM Majors
1. What factors predict that incoming STEM majors who graduate will attain a STEM degree?
2. What elements affect incoming STEM majors’ persistence in college?
3. What variables influence non-STEM majors who graduate college to switch to and attain a degree in a STEM field?
4. What factors motivate undecided majors to declare and graduate with a STEM degree?
Female Faculty Role Models, Self-efficacy and Student Achievement
This study estimates the effect of having a female instructor, the effects of measures of self-efficacy, and the interaction effects of measures of self-efficacy and having a female instructor on female and male student grade performance.
An Exploration of STEM, Entrepreneurship, and Impact on Girls in an Independent Day School
1) Examine the impact of a predominately female STEEM (science, technology, engineering, entrepreneurship and mathematics) teaching staff on girls’ perceptions of STEEM. 2) Examine the impact of adding entrepreneurship to a STEM curriculum.
Choice of Majors: Are Women Really Different from Men?
– High school academic preparation, faculty gender composition, and major returns have little effect on major switching behaviors, and women and men are equally likely to change their major in response to poor grades in major-related courses.
– Women in male-dominated majors do not exhibit different patterns of switching behaviors relative to their male colleagues.
– Women are more likely to switch out of male-dominated STEM majors in response to poor performance compared to men.
– It takes multiple signals of lack of fit into a major (low grades, gender composition of class, and external stereotyping signals) to impel female students to switch majors.
Women in Technology: College Experiences that are Correlated with Long-term Career Success
The purpose of this study is to identify key college experiences that are correlated with long-term success for female technologists. Research questions include whether long-term career success is more likely for female technology graduates who, during their undergraduate studies, (1) personally interacted with professional and academic role models, (2) were able to apply their classroom learning to real world problems, and (3) actively participated in campus life.
Laying the Tracks for Successful Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Education: What Can We Learn from Comparisons of Immigrant-Native Achievement in the USA?
This paper examines the immigrant-native achievement gap in science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields in college in the USA.
Family Socioeconomic Status and Choice of STEM Major in College: An Analysis of a National Sample
Does students’ decision of STEM enrollment in college differ systematically by family SES?
Gender Differences in the Choice of Major: The Importance of Female Role Models
This paper asks whether exposure to female role models may be an effective way to induce more
women to major in a male-dominated field.
Why does teacher gender matter?
– High school math and science teacher gender affects student interest and self-efficacy in STEM. However, such effects become insignificant once teacher behaviors and attitudes are taken into account, thus pointing towards an omitted variables bias.
– Teacher beliefs about male and female ability in math and science – as well as how teachers treat boys and girls in the classroom – matter more than teacher’s own gender.
-Creating a positive learning environment and making math and science interesting are pivotal in engaging students in these subjects.
– Student interest and self-efficacy are substantially affected by teacher ability to make their subject interesting and to create a positive learning environment.
– Rather than hiring more female teachers or segregating students by gender, training teachers ( increasing empathy and reducing gender biases) could be more effective in increasing student self-efficacy and interest in STEM.
– What matters primarily in this context are not the role models played by teachers (or the stereotype threats), but the time and skills that instructors put in preparing their lectures and supporting their students.
Cracking the Code: Girls' and Women's Education in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)
The report is intended to stimulate debate and inform STEM policies and programmes at global, regional and national levels. Specifically, it aims to: i) document the status of girls’ and women’s participation, learning achievement, and progression in STEM education; ii) ‘crack the code’, i.e., decipher the factors that contribute to girls’ and women’s participation, achievement and progression in STEM education; and, iii) identify interventions that promote girls’ and women’s interest in and engagement with STEM studies.
STEM Pathways: Examining Persistence in Rigorous Math and Science Course Taking
What proportion of the STEM-interested students enroll in STEM-related career academies? Are there differences in course taking patterns among STEM-interested students who do or do not enroll in such academies? How do the course taking patterns of STEM-interested students in Florida compare with other students in the USA?
Mind the Gap: Student Researchers Use Secondary Data to Explore Disparities in STEM Education
1) How do students’ math and science self-efficacies relate to students’ post-secondary education plans? Are there differences by gender? 2) Is gender or race related to students’ taking of computer science courses? In the student’s choice of a computer science career? 3) Do students with individualized education plans (IEPs) differ from general education students in their expectations to obtain a degree post high school? Of the students that have an IEP, are there differences in their expectations for post-secondary plans by socioeconomic status? 4) Does participating in extracurricular activities (EA) have an effect on a student’s plans to attend college? Does SES status affect the relationship between participation and educational plans?
Aligning Science Achievement and STEM Expectations for College Success: A Comparative Study of Curricular Standardization
This paper examines student science
achievement in the precollege years, focusing
on students who indicate they plan to major
in science or pursue a science career. It compares the United States with other industrialized countries in terms of science achievement and determines the degree to which crossnational variations in standardization of the curriculum are related to science achievement, net of other country-level factors such as teacher quality and economic development. The authors then examine cross-national variations in students’
future orientations toward STEM to determine
whether curricular standardization is related
to the alignment of students’ science achievement with their plans to pursue a STEM major or career
Exploring the Foundations of the Future STEM Workforce: K-12 Indicators of Postsecondary STEM Success
- What K-12 indicators predict postsecondary STEM success?
- To what extent do K-12 indicators of postsecondary STEM success differ for Hispanic and non-Hispanic students?
Gender Differences in Learning Outcomes from the College Experiences of Engineering Students
1) How do curricular emphases differently affect engineering learning outcomes by gender? 2) How do instructional approaches differently affect engineering learning outcomes by gender? 3) How does participation in co-curricular experiences differently affect engineering learning outcomes by gender?
Computing Whether She Belongs: Stereotypes Undermine Girls’ Interest and Sense of Belonging in Computer Science
The authors predict that belonging will have a particularly strong influence on interest because belonging is a fundamentally important motivator. They also examine a potentially important individual difference that may affect belonging- whether students feel that they personally fit the stereotype of a computer scientist.
Characteristics of US Students That Pursued a STEM Major and Factors That Predicted Their Persistence in Degree Completion
1) What are the characteristics of students’ who declared a STEM major? 2)What are the characteristics of students who completed a STEM major? 3)What factors influence students who persisted to complete a STEM major?
Do Foreigners Crowd Natives out of STEM Degrees and Occupations? Evidence from the U.S. Immigration Act of 1990
Examine the effects of the U.S. Immigration Act of 1990 on STEM (science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics) degree completion and labor market outcomes
for native-born Americans.
Teacher Characteristics, Student Beliefs and the Gender Gap in STEM Fields
To examine the impact of teachers’ gender, beliefs and behaviors on students’ beliefs about boys’ and girls’ abilities in math and science.
Understanding the Changing Dynamics of the Gender Gap in Undergraduate Engineering Majors: 1971-2011
This paper examines the level and determinants of students’ plans to major in engineering when entering college. (1) How has the gender gap in incoming college students’ intent to major in engineering changed over the past 4 decades? (2) What are the determinants of women’s and men’s decision to major in engineering versus all other fields? To what extent have these determinants and/or their salience changed over time for women and men? (3) To what extent is the gender gap in the selection of engineering due to (a) gender differences in attributes, versus (b) gender differences in the salience of these attributes? How has this changed over time?
Gender Differences in Conceptualizations of STEM Career Interest: Complementary Perspectives from Data Mining, Multivariate Data Analysis and Multidimensional Scaling
To extract new information about differences in male versus female conceptual frameworks of STEM career interest in middle school.
The Role of School Performance in Narrowing Gender Gaps in the Formation of STEM Aspirations: A Cross-National Study
To determine whether the school context is related to the gender gap in STEM aspirations cross-culturally.
Perceived Mathematical Ability under Challenge: A Longitudinal Perspective on Sex Segregation among STEM Degree Fields
1) To what degree do domain-specific and domain-general perceptions of ability under challenge differ by gender? 2) What is the relationship between perceived ability under challenge in mathematics and advanced high school science course enrollment? 3) To what extent does perceived ability under challenge in mathematics predict staying in a STEM field as intended before entering postsecondary education? How is this relationship moderated by gender? 4) What is the relationship between perceived ability under challenge in mathematics and selection of mathematics-intensive science majors (physics, engineering, mathematics, and computer science(PEMC), and how is that relationship moderated by gender?