The Role of Gender, Spatial Ability, and Math-Related Factors in Children's STEM Career Aspirations

• In Event: “Bold Problem Solving” and Spatial Skills: Two Important Constructs for Gender Equity in Mathematics Education

Abstract

Patterns in children’s career aspirations in STEM fields have not been thoroughly investigated, despite evidence that the process of career selection starts early (Weisgram, Bigler, Liben, 2010). Gender differences are evident in STEM fields (Xie & Shauman, 2003), but we do not know how early boys’ and girls’ aspirations diverge.

Previous work with adolescents has found that spatial skills can predict and even explain gender differences in STEM career choices (Voyer, Voyer, & Bryden, 1995; Wai, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2009). Expectancy-value theory (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000) suggests that cognitive factors such as spatial skills, in conjunction with attitudes, build the foundation for STEM career choices. However, limited work has examined whether such relationships exist already in elementary grades. Thus, in this study we examine whether spatial skills and math-related cognitive and affective factors predict children’s STEM career aspirations, and whether these predictors help explain gender differences in these aspirations.

Participants were 151 elementary-school students. Career aspirations measured in the third year of the study (grades 3-5) were coded into three STEM categories of physical sciences, biological sciences, and medicine. Early cognitive and affective factors were measured in the first year of the study (grades 1-3) and used to predict STEM career aspirations. Gender and two measures of spatial skills were used as predictors (spatial visualization/rotation and spatial perception), along with mathematics performance, anxiety, interest, confidence, and importance. Grade in school was included as a covariate.

Correlations in Table 1 show that boys had higher spatial perception scores, less math anxiety, and were more likely to be interested in a physical science career. More girls were interested in medicine. Spatial visualization/rotation correlated with physical science career aspirations.

Table 2 shows results from three logistic regression analyses. Students with stronger spatial visualization/rotation skills were more likely to aspire to a physical science career. However, there was no gender difference in this spatial measure in our sample, and so spatial skills did not explain gender differences in career aspirations at this early age. Girls were more likely to aspire to a medical career, but no other predictors were significant. A follow-up study is examining the role of SES in the relationship between early spatial skills and career aspirations, and results will be discussed in this presentation.

The gender differences in these young children’s medical and physical science career aspirations are consistent with gender differences in STEM careers in adult samples (NSF, 2017). Critically, early spatial skills appear to play a role in children’s aspirations for physical science careers two years later. However, spatial skills did not explain the gender difference in physical sciences due to the lack of a gender difference in spatial skills among the 1st through 3rd graders studied. Given other studies suggesting that gender differences in spatial skills do appear by adolescence (Mix & Cheng, 2012), it is important to further examine the role of spatial skills in ultimately explaining gender differences in physical science careers.

Authors

• Connie Barroso, Florida State University

• Colleen M. Ganley, Florida State University

• Brittany Cunnien, University of Central Florida