A new study published in PNAS reports that female engineering students who are exposed to a higher percentage of female peers in small group interactions have increased levels of motivation, greater verbal participation, and feel more confident in their engineering career aspirations. This finding could have far-reaching implications for the gender imbalance that currently exists in engineering and related fields.
A hallmark of the public conversation regarding science education is the issue of gender parity. Fewer women than men pursue jobs and education in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), and those women who do enter these fields are more likely to leave than their male counterparts. In the US, women comprise only 28 percent of the workforce in these areas, despite being half of the population and getting closer to parity in others.
This gender differential begins during education. In their first year of college, women are less likely than men to state an intention to pursue STEM education, and those numbers continue to fall throughout their first few undergraduate semesters. Though the women who initially said they’re intending to major in STEM fields are well prepared academically, they report feeling less confidence in their skills and a decreased motivation to pursue a STEM career compared to male peers.
The authors of this study think that the gender gap in STEM education and careers may be influenced by subtle cues that indicate to women that they don’t truly belong in these fields and that their lack of engagement is likely driven by their isolation and concerns about being judged through stereotypes.
To test their hypothesis, the researchers used what's called a stereotype inoculation model. This model posits that when individuals are exposed to peers and experts that are similar to themselves, it protects them from internalizing negative stereotypes about themselves. In the past, research has shown that exposure to female experts in STEM fields can boost a woman’s own interest in those fields; however, the new study demonstrated that same-sex peers can have a similar protective effect.
The researchers studied 122 female undergraduates majoring in engineering at a large public university. These students were assigned to groups of research assistants with three types of composition: female minority, female majority, or equal numbers of both genders. The participants were unaware that gender composition of the groups was part of the experimental design, and the subjects were unaware that their group mates were research assistants.
Subjects were asked to work on an engineering task alone, and then within their group. The research assistants evaluated the subjects’ participation in the problem-solving process. The subject was then isolated again and asked to assess her self-confidence in her engineering performance, her career aspirations, and how important her gender was to the group experience.
In their analysis, the researchers found that subjects who had been assigned to a female minority group felt significantly more challenged and threatened than those subjects assigned to female majority groups or gender equal groups. The researchers then probed this further and found that younger students in the female minority group were significantly more likely to feel threatened and challenged, but this effect wasn’t found in older female students.
Based on the research assistants’ observations, the researchers found that all subjects, regardless of age, were significantly more active in group problem-solving when they were in the female majority group than when they belonged to groups with equal genders or female-minority composition. When asked about their gender, women in the female minority group were more likely to perceive their gender in a distinctive and negative way; women in the female majority or gender equal conditions didn’t have this issue.
The researchers were also curious about the interaction between these group conditions and the implicit stereotypes that the participants may have held. The one at issue: how quickly participants associated engineering with men rather than with women.
Implicit stereotypes were assessed prior to the solo and group problem solving sessions. The investigators found that, for those participants in the minority female groups, holding implicit stereotypes was associated with less self confidence in their ability. Implicit stereotypes and self-confidence were not associated for participants from the majority female or equal gender conditions.
Finally, the data showed that, for those women assigned to female minority groups, implicit stereotypes were linked to less interest in pursuing an engineering career. This association was not found in participants who were exposed to the female majority or equal gender conditions.
The findings presented in this article will need to be replicated with larger samples in other universities. But they may suggest a novel way to help increase the number of women in STEM fields: group women with each other early in their education. The data imply that, if women are assigned to do group assignments where the gender composition is at least equal, it could help to break the cycle of gender imbalance in STEM fields.
The take home message of this article is that women feel less confident and less likely to hold on to their STEM-related aspirations if they’re consistently in the minority. Small groups in which women are the majority may help to protect them from the consequences of being in the minority overall.
PNAS, 2015. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1422822112 (About DOIs).
Listing image by Maia Weinstock on Flickr
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