Investigating Links between Parents’ Science-Related Attitudes and Parent-Child Interactions During a Shared Science Book Reading Activity

• In Event: STEM: Cognition, Motivations, and Interventions

Abstract

The gender gap in many science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) occupations has narrowed over the years—particularly in the life sciences. However, there remain large gender gaps in the physical sciences where women constitute less than 20% of the workforce (NSF, 2017). Prior studies note that parental encouragement of science predicts children’s later motivation (Simpkins et al., 2005). There is a growing body of research considering the early socialization of science motivation; However, no studies have investigated how parents’ science-related attitudes may be linked to gender-biased behaviors during informal science learning opportunities with young children. Furthermore, little work has considered how socialization patterns may differ by the type of science (e.g., life science, physical science).
We examined the time 96 mother-child dyads spent reading and discussing two science books (1 life science topic, 1 physical science topic) with their preschool-age children (M=62months, Ngirls=49 ). Additionally, mothers reported their beliefs related to science using three scales: beliefs about their children’s science-related abilities (Tenenbaum & Leaper, 2003), own beliefs about science (Szechter, 2009), and beliefs about innate brilliance required for success in science (Meyer, Cimpian, & Leslie, 2015). Lastly, children reported how much they enjoyed each book. We predicted that mothers’ attitudes and behaviors, but not children’s reported book enjoyment, would differ by child gender. Additionally, we predicted that mothers’ attitudes would be linked with their reading time and children’s reported enjoyment of each book. We predicted these associations would differ by child gender and book type.
We first investigated gender differences in mothers' attitudes, behaviors, and children’s reported enjoyment of the books through a series of independent sample t-tests. We found one significant difference. Girls reported enjoying the life science book (M=4.5,SD=.66) more than boys reported enjoying the life science book (M=3.9,SD=1.3), t(94)=3, p=.003.
Next, we conducted a series of bivariate correlations split by child gender to examine the association between mothers’ science-related attitudes, behaviors, and children’s reported enjoyment of the two books. We found two significant correlations and tested for gender differences in correlational patterns. The first pattern was a significant negative association between mothers’ beliefs about their children’s abilities in science and the time they spent reading the life science book for girls, r=-.375,p=.008, but not boys, r=.175,p=.215, Z=-2.09,p=.02. The greater mothers reported their daughters abilities in science, the less time they spent with the life science book. The second pattern was a significant negative association between mothers’ views of science and daughters reported enjoyment of the physical science book, r=-.362,p=.015. The more mothers reported positive views of science, the less enjoyment daughters reported for the physical science book. This correlational pattern was not significant for boys, r=-.06,p=.71; However, there was not a significant difference between the two correlational patterns.
Our findings provide evidence that mothers’ attitudes may partially inform their behaviors and children’s experiences during informal science learning interactions. Mothers’ early science socialization practices may be more nuanced for daughters compared to sons, and may focus daughters more on the life sciences compared to physical sciences.

Authors

• Tess Shirefley, University of California - Santa Cruz
  Presenting Author

• Campbell Leaper, University of California - Santa Cruz
  Non-Presenting Author