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I am done with this! Women dropping out of engineering majors
Women are still underrepresented in STEM careers (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). One of the possible drivers behind this gender gap in the labour market is the female dropout from STEM education. The causes of the gender differences in the persistence of pursuing STEM studies ha...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9415617/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36033057 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.918439 |
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author | González-Pérez, Susana Martínez-Martínez, Miryam Rey-Paredes, Virginia Cifre, Eva |
author_facet | González-Pérez, Susana Martínez-Martínez, Miryam Rey-Paredes, Virginia Cifre, Eva |
author_sort | González-Pérez, Susana |
collection | PubMed |
description | Women are still underrepresented in STEM careers (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). One of the possible drivers behind this gender gap in the labour market is the female dropout from STEM education. The causes of the gender differences in the persistence of pursuing STEM studies have been explained by multiple factors related to interest and resolution in this type of career. The goal of the present research is to study the Engineering persistence gender gap in higher education by exploring the main factors underlying the leakage in the pipeline of Engineering fields. Our study reports the results of 34 qualitative in-depth interviews where internal barriers, stereotypes and external obstacles are assessed by women who have left their university degrees, compared with men who have withdrawn and women who have persisted. Results from the content analysis suggest that the undermining of persistence in Engineering fields is related to factors such as the chilly and hostile environment in classes or the workload from an excessively demanding curriculum. Other factors affecting women’s withdrawal are the lack of role models and the perceived incongruity between the female gender role and STEM roles in society, leading to a weakening of female students’ self-efficacy and eroding their sense of belongingness, even making them consider dropping out of their Engineering degree. These findings provide information for the design of future STEM interventions aimed to enhance women’s persistence in STEM university studies. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9415617 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-94156172022-08-27 I am done with this! Women dropping out of engineering majors González-Pérez, Susana Martínez-Martínez, Miryam Rey-Paredes, Virginia Cifre, Eva Front Psychol Psychology Women are still underrepresented in STEM careers (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). One of the possible drivers behind this gender gap in the labour market is the female dropout from STEM education. The causes of the gender differences in the persistence of pursuing STEM studies have been explained by multiple factors related to interest and resolution in this type of career. The goal of the present research is to study the Engineering persistence gender gap in higher education by exploring the main factors underlying the leakage in the pipeline of Engineering fields. Our study reports the results of 34 qualitative in-depth interviews where internal barriers, stereotypes and external obstacles are assessed by women who have left their university degrees, compared with men who have withdrawn and women who have persisted. Results from the content analysis suggest that the undermining of persistence in Engineering fields is related to factors such as the chilly and hostile environment in classes or the workload from an excessively demanding curriculum. Other factors affecting women’s withdrawal are the lack of role models and the perceived incongruity between the female gender role and STEM roles in society, leading to a weakening of female students’ self-efficacy and eroding their sense of belongingness, even making them consider dropping out of their Engineering degree. These findings provide information for the design of future STEM interventions aimed to enhance women’s persistence in STEM university studies. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-08-12 /pmc/articles/PMC9415617/ /pubmed/36033057 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.918439 Text en Copyright © 2022 González-Pérez, Martínez-Martínez, Rey-Paredes and Cifre. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Psychology González-Pérez, Susana Martínez-Martínez, Miryam Rey-Paredes, Virginia Cifre, Eva I am done with this! Women dropping out of engineering majors |
title | I am done with this! Women dropping out of engineering majors |
title_full | I am done with this! Women dropping out of engineering majors |
title_fullStr | I am done with this! Women dropping out of engineering majors |
title_full_unstemmed | I am done with this! Women dropping out of engineering majors |
title_short | I am done with this! Women dropping out of engineering majors |
title_sort | i am done with this! women dropping out of engineering majors |
topic | Psychology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9415617/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36033057 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.918439 |
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