Children's and Young Adults' Perceptions of STEM Interests and Occupational Status

• In Event: Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Topic - Moral Development

Abstract

On both implicit and explicit measures, young children associate math with boys more than with girls, and young girls have lower self-concepts in relation to math than boys (Cvencek et al., 2011). This provides evidence for the early emergence of pro-boy biases regarding math interests and abilities, and may extend to other related domains. Indeed, children develop gender biases regarding occupations during the preschool years (Liben & Bigler, 2002), and children and adults associate jobs that require brilliance with males more than females (Bian et al., 2017; Bian et al., 2018). Less research, however, has investigated how children’s perceptions of how much boys and girls enjoy different subjects is related to their perceptions of whether boys or girls are more likely to have certain jobs. Thus, it is possible that pro-boy biases in STEM and related disciplines may emerge out of assumptions that boys enjoy these activities more than girls.
Participants (N = 144; 5- to 6-year-olds, 9- to 11-year-olds, young adults) provided their own perceptions of boys’ and girls’ preferences for math and science, whether girls or boys would be more likely to obtain certain occupations (e.g., scientist, doctor), and how much participants themselves think they are good at math and at science.
Ratings of Liking Math and Science. We found that male participants thought that boys liked math significantly more than girls (p = .004), whereas female participants thought that boys liked math as much as girls (p > .05). Thus, males exhibited a pro-boy bias in their evaluations of how much boys like math, whereas females did not. In contrast, we found no differences in participants’ perceptions of how much boys and girls like science (p > .05).
Occupational Status. In general, participants expected a male to be more likely to be a scientist than a female (p < .001). Importantly, however, the more participants perceived girls as liking science, the more likely participants were to pick a female, over a male, as a scientist (p = .015). Furthermore, participants did not expect a male to be more likely to become a doctor than a female (p > .05), indicating that pro-boy biases regarding occupations do not extend to all STEM-related fields.
Self-efficacy. We found no differences in how much male participants reported being good at math and science compared to how much female participants evaluated being good at math and science (p > .05). As a whole, however, participants reported being better at math than science (p < .001). Self-efficacy scores were not related to other measures, and we found no differences with age (ps > .05).
Supporting previous research, we found pro-boy biases regarding math interests and STEM occupations. Importantly, however, we also found connections between perceptions of how much girls like science and subsequently selecting a girl over a boy as a scientist. Thus, one possible avenue for changing gender biases related to STEM occupations may be to target beliefs about how much boys and girls enjoy STEM-related activities.

Authors

• Riley N. Sims, University of Maryland - College Park
  Presenting Author

• Amanda Rose Burkholder, Furman University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Melanie A. Killen, University of Maryland - College Park
  Non-Presenting Author