Factors Beyond Academic Achievement and Self-Efficacy That Affect STEM Women’s Confidence in Completing Their Major (Poster 12)

• In Event: Friday Poster Session 7:45 am
  In Poster Session: Considering Teachers, Students, and Contexts in Science Education

Abstract

Despite recent efforts to increase the number of women in STEM, women continue to drop out of STEM majors and be underrepresented in STEM fields. Past research has attempted to understand these issues from gender difference in cognitive abilities and academic achievement and STEM women’s self-efficacy. However, gender is a more complex construct, and other factors can affect women’s persistence in STEM. This study, which uses a mediation path analysis model, found that college STEM women’s perceptions of gender relations and resources directly affected their career decision self-efficacy. Although these factors did not directly predict women’s confidence in completing their majors, they, along with women’s college GPA, had partial effects on their confidence through career decision self-efficacy.

Authors

• Haiying Long, University of Kansas

• Barbara Kerr, University of Kansas

• Karen D. Multon, University of Kansas

• Marie S. Hammond, Tennessee State University