College STEM Majors’ Interest in People: Sex and Discipline Differences

• In Event: Gendered Relationships in College Contexts

Abstract

Interest in “people” might explain why women fail to major in some STEM fields, but are well represented in others, such as Biology. We compared interest in people and interest in “things” for female STEM biology majors, STEM majors in other fields, and nursing majors, traditionally feminine fields. Interestingly, women in non-biology STEM majors were not different in people-interest from their peers in biology and nursing. For women, interest in “things” differed across the three major choices. Additional analyses examine how person and thing interest in combination with gender role characteristics explains women’s choice of a major.

Authors

• Lydia Yang Yang, Kansas State University

• Joan Barth, The University of Alabama

• Alabama STEM Education Research Team, The University of Alabama