Panel Paper:
STEM College Major Selection: Perceptions of Males, Females, and Their Parents and Teachers
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
• Among recently enrolled college students with plans to pursue a STEM major, do differences exist between male and female students in the perceptions they had in high school of the general mathematics and science capabilities of males and females? Are there differences in students’ parents’ and high school mathematics and science teachers’ perceptions of these capabilities?
Data
The data for this study are from HSLS:09, a nationally representative study of a cohort of students who were 9th-graders in fall 2009. Data on students’ perceptions of the general math and science capabilities of males and females were collected at grade 9 and again at grade 11, and data on their parents’ and high school teachers’ perceptions of these capabilities were collected when students were in the 9th grade. A brief follow-up data collection was completed in the spring of students’ expected graduation year, 2013, to collect students’ transcripts and information on their postsecondary options and plans.
Analysis
Descriptive analyses were performed to describe students’ (and their parents’ and math and science teachers’) perceptions of the relative math and science capabilities of males and females. The responses were grouped into three categories for each perception measure: “Males are somewhat or much better than females,” “Males and females are the same,” and “Females are somewhat or much better than males.”
Comparisons between male and female students were performed using independent t tests for continuous variables and Wald F tests for categorical variables.
Results
Among the recently enrolled college students who were considering a STEM major:
• At grade 9, males were generally more likely than females to hold positive opinions about males’ math and science capabilities, while females were more likely than males to hold positive opinions about females’ math and science capabilities. Similar patterns were observed at grade 11.
• However, male students were more positive about males’ general capabilities in math and science in the 11th grade than they were in the 9th grade, while female students were less positive about females’ general math and science capabilities in the 11th grade than they were in the 9th grade.
• Patterns for parents’ perceptions were similar to those found by gender for the students themselves. Parents of male 9th-graders were more likely to hold positive opinions about males’ capabilities in math and science than female students’ parents, and parents of female 9th-graders were more likely to hold positive opinions about females’ capabilities in math and science than male students’ parents.
• In contrast to the patterns for students and parents, there were no statistically significant differences by students’ gender in their 9th-grade math teachers’ perceptions of males’ and females’ math capabilities or their 9th-grade science teachers’ perceptions of males’ and females’ science capabilities.
Full Paper:
