Professional Role Confidence and Gendered Persistence in Engineering

By Erin A. Cech, Brian Rubineau, S. Silbey, Caroll Seron. 2011

542 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Social psychological research on gendered persistence in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professions is dominated by two explanations: women leave because they perceive their family plans to be at odds with demands of STEM careers, and women leave due to low self-assessment of their skills in STEM’s intellectual tasks, net of their performance. This study uses original panel data to examine behavioral and intentional persistence among students who enter an engineering major in college. Surprisingly, family plans do not contribute to women’s attrition during college but are negatively associated with men’s intentions to pursue an engineering career. Additionally, math self-assessment does not predict behavioral or intentional persistence once students enroll in a STEM major. This study introduces professional role confidence—individuals’ confidence in their ability to successfully fulfill the roles, competencies, and identity features of a profession—and argues that women’s lack of this confidence, compared to men, reduces their likelihood of remaining in engineering majors and careers. We find that professional role confidence predicts behavioral and intentional persistence, and that women’s relative lack of this confidence contributes to their attrition.

Subfields: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Gender Studies, Safety Research

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/abd3c6854f05cef54d1fbe74ead145e77619392f

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Citations in the corpus

Why Are Some STEM Fields More Gender Balanced Than Others? (2017, unknown): “…between career and family responsibilities as a major problem for women pursuing careers in science, engineering, and mathematics (Hartman & Hartman, 2008), freshman women’s intentions to start a family did not predict their persistence in undergraduate engineering programs (Cech et al., 2011).”
Persistence Is Cultural: Professional Socialization and the Reproduction of Sex Segregation (2016, methodology): “Our previous analysis of the longitudinal data from the surveys we administered each year to a panel of seven hundred students across the four schools found that school was not a significant factor in an explanation of persistence (Cech et al. 2011).”
Beneath the numbers: A review of gender disparities in undergraduate education across science, technology, engineering, and math disciplines (2016, unknown): “Engineering LO S: 1983 Ma M [54] C: NA I: 1 ? S: 147 Ma M [55] C: 5 I: 1 LL S:288 Ma M [56] C: NA I: 1 LL and LO S: 6180 Ma M [57] C: NA I:15 LL S:121 Ma M [29] C: NA I: 1 LL S: 117 Ma M [58] C: 1 I: 1 LL and UL S: 726 Ma 1⁄4 or M [59] C: NA I: 1”
Who likes math where? Gender differences in eighth-graders’ attitudes around the world (2014, background): “This may reflect differences in mathematical self-confidence by gender, or negative cultural messages that counteract positive achievement effects (Cech et al., 2011; Correll, 2001, 2004).”
Men Set Their Own Cites High: Gender and Self-citation across Fields and over Time (2016, background): “Women are especially prone to be evaluated critically (Cech et al. 2011; Thébaud 2010) or penalized for success (Heilman et al.”
Using the Social Cognitive Theory Framework to Chart Gender Differences in the Developmental Trajectory of STEM Self-Efficacy in Science and Engineering Students (2020, background): “self-efficacy toward both success in engineering classes and the profession than women (Besterfield-Sacre et al. 2001; Cech et al. 2011; Hackett et al. 1992; Jagacinski 2013; Vogt et al. 2007).”
Breaking it Down: Engineering Student STEM Confidence at the Intersection of Race/Ethnicity and Gender (2014, background): “Male faculty and peers may perceive women pursuing these professions as unfit simply because they deviate from the conventional image of such professionals (Cech et al. 2011).”