Social or Economic Goals? The Professional Goal Orientation of Students Enrolled in STEM and Non-STEM Majors in University
Autor/in:
Wolter, Ilka; Ehrtmann, Lisa; Seidel, Tina; Drechsel, Barbara
Quelle: Front. Psychol. (Frontiers in Psychology), 10 (2019)
Inhalt: Various studies try to disentangle the gender-specific competencies or decisions that lead to a career in a STEM field and try to find a way to encourage more women to pursue this kind of career. The present study examines differences in the meaning of work (i.e., their professional goal orientation) of students who are enrolled in STEM or non-STEM programs in tertiary education. Based on the background that gender stereotypes associate women and men with communal or agentic roles respectively, we expected that women in STEM subjects differ in their professional goal orientation from women in non-STEM programs. More precisely, women who are enrolled in a STEM major are expected to be less oriented to social and communal goal orientations than women in non-STEM university programs. In a sample of 5857 second year university students of the German National Educational Panel Study three profiles of professional goal orientation were confirmed in a latent profile analysis. As expected, women were more oriented towards social aspects of occupations, whereas men more likely belonged to a profile with high importance for economic aspects of occupations. Moreover, students enrolled in STEM programs more likely belonged to the profile of economic goal orientation. There was, however, no interaction of gender and STEM program: Women in STEM fields did not differ in their occupational goal orientation from women enrolled in non-STEM programs. Based on these findings and on a goal congruity perspective, future interventions aiming at overcoming the underrepresentation of women in STEM fields should consider the individual meaning of work and the goals that are associated with STEM occupations.
Quelle: Front. Sociol. (Frontiers in Sociology), 4 (2019) , 26 S
Inhalt: Research and popular debate on female underrepresentation in academia has focused on STEM fields. But recent work has offered a unifying explanation for gender representation across the STEM/nonSTEM divide. This proposed explanation, called the fieldspecific ability beliefs (FAB) hypothesis, postulates that, in combination with pervasive stereotypes that link men but not women with intellectual talent, academics perpetuate female underrepresentation by transmitting to students in earlier stages of education their beliefs about how much intellectual talent is required for success in each academic field. This theory was supported by a national survey which found that the disciplines with the fewest women had practitioners who were most likely to think that success in their field requires [talent]/[brilliance]. We test this topdown schema with a nationwide survey of U.S. undergraduates, assessing the extent to which undergraduate beliefs about talent in academia mirror those of academics. We find no evidence that academics transmit their beliefs to undergraduates. We also use a second survey – identical to the first but with each field’s gender ratio provided as added information – to explicitly test the relationship between undergraduate beliefs about gender and talent in academia. The results for this second survey suggest that the extent to which undergraduates rate brilliance as essential to success in an academic field is highly sensitive to this added information for nonSTEM fields, but not STEM fields. Overall, our study offers evidence that, contrary to FAB hypothesis, the STEM/nonSTEM divide principally shapes undergraduate beliefs about both gender and talent in academia.
Schlagwörter:Fächerwahl; Frauen in der Wissenschaft; gender bias; Gender stereotype; Geschlechterstereotyp; MINT; non-STEM divide; quantitative Analyse; STEM; Stereotyp; talent; Underrepresentation of women; Unterrepräsentanz; women in science
CEWS Kategorie:Studium und Studierende, Naturwissenschaft und Technik, Geschlechterverhältnis
Frauen in der Informatik : Können sie mehr als sie denken? Eine Analyse geschlechtsspezifischer Erfolgserwartungen unter Informatikstudierenden
Autor/in:
Förtsch, Silvia; Schmid, Ute
Quelle: GENDER (GENDER – Zeitschrift für Geschlecht, Kultur und Gesellschaft), 10 (2018) 1, S 130–150
Inhalt: Obwohl ein Anstieg des Frauenanteils in den Informatikstudiengängen zu verzeichnen ist, gilt die IT-Branche nach wie vor als Männerdomäne. Der weibliche Anteil in deutschen IT-Abteilungen beträgt knapp 10 Prozent (Weitzel et al. 2017). Ein Grund für die mangelnde Präsenz der Frauen im IT-Bereich könnte die geringere Erfolgserwartung der Studentinnen im Studium sein. In diesem Beitrag wird untersucht, ob vorangegangene Schulleistungen sowie intrinsische Motivation für die Studiengangswahl, nämlich Begabung und Interesse für das Fach, die subjektive Einschätzung des Studienerfolgs von Informatikstudierenden beeinflussen. Obwohl Studentinnen sich im Vergleich zu ihren Kommilitonen in ihren durchschnittlichen Mathematikleistungen nicht signifikant unterscheiden und sie im Durchschnitt die bessere Abiturabschlussnote erzielen, unterschätzen sie sich in ihrem persönlichen Studienerfolg signifikant, insbesondere in stark techniklastigen Informatikstudiengängen. Ebenso können Studentinnen von einer hohen intrinsischen Motivation, hinsichtlich ihrer Erfolgseinschätzungen im Studium nicht profitieren. Die durchgeführte Analyse bezieht sich auf das Datenmaterial aus dem ESF-Forschungsprojekt „Alumnae Tracking“.
Schlagwörter:Geschlecht; Informatik; Motivation; schulische Leistung; Studienerfolg; Studium
CEWS Kategorie:Studium und Studierende, Naturwissenschaft und Technik, Geschlechterverhältnis
The Gender-Equality Paradox in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education
Autor/in:
Stoet, Gijsbert; Geary, David C.
Quelle: Psychological Science, 29 (2018) 4, S 581–593
Inhalt: The underrepresentation of girls and women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields is a continual concern for social scientists and policymakers. Using an international database on adolescent achievement in science, mathematics, and reading ( N = 472,242), we showed that girls performed similarly to or better than boys in science in two of every three countries, and 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. The gap between boys' science achievement and girls' reading achievement relative to their mean academic performance was near universal. These sex differences in academic strengths and attitudes toward science correlated with the STEM graduation gap. A mediation analysis suggested that life-quality pressures in less gender-equal countries promote girls' and women's engagement with STEM subjects.
AFIS - Analyse und Förderung der Integration von Studierenden mit Migrationshintergrund in technischen Studiengängen unter Berücksichtigung der Gender-Perspektive - Kurzfassung
Männlich dominierte Computerwelt : Wege von Frauen in die Informatik
Titelübersetzung:Male dominated computer world : paths for women to computer science
Autor/in:
Ripke, Marita
Quelle: Das Hochschulwesen : Forum für Hochschulforschung, -praxis und -politik, Jg. 59 (2011) H. 5, S. 162-171
Inhalt: "The lack of new students in the MINT subjects - particularly the lack of women - is a reason for numerous root cause analyzes. The author reviews this field from the opposite direction. In her article 'Male-dominated computer world - women's paths to informatics' she further unveils this phenomenon by analyzing biographies of women, who already found their way into computer science. In her biographical approach, the author has these women report on their motives for choosing informatics. There are many reasons why relatively few women are studying MINT subjects. As the author points out, social stereotypes play a major rote when choosing subjects. But causes can be found in learning theory as well. Students (and mostly female students) are impaired because teaching in science-related lessons often benefits serial learners, while holistic learners - to which the majority of students belong - have their difficulties with this kind of teaching. And since students use preferences and achievements in school to predict a possible success in their studies they turn away from MINT subjects." (author's abstract)