STEM: A help or a hinderance in attracting more girls to engineering?

Abstract

Background: Research on gender differences and practical initiatives to attract girls to engineering are often carried out at the macro level where science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are aggregated into an entity called STEM. Purpose/Hypothesis: This article challenges the aggregated approach, analyzes gender differences among science and engineering applicants in Finland, and discusses the implications of the findings for engineering education and intervention initiatives.Design/Method: The data consist of the application choices of all applicants to Bachelor studies in Finland in 2016 (151,369 individuals), from which two groups were selected: persons whose first application choice was engineering/ technology and persons whose first choice was natural sciences or mathematics.The application choices of these individuals (in total 9,104) are statistically described and analyzed. Results: Engineering/technology (TECH) and natural sciences and mathematics (SCIMA) subjects are not perceived as alternative options by female applicants. Almost 60% of all female TECH applicants and more than 50% of the female SCIMA applicants apply only to their respective programs. Moreover, TECH applicants considering other options prefer other subjects to SCIMA and vice versa.Conclusions: Encouraging more girls to study STEM is not a sufficient solution for attracting more women to engineering. Instead of or in addition to encouraging girls to study science and mathematics in K-12 education, it is necessary to open the black box of technology and help young people better understand what engineering is about. K E Y W O R D S gender diversity, higher education, identity, STEM

A Systematic Review of Research on Gender Diversity in STEM Education

“…Focus Areas References Conducting research on strategies and initiatives to promote gender parity in the STEM sector (Benavent et al, 2020), (García-Holgado et al, 2020), (Gweshe & Chiware, 2023), (Reinking & Martin, 2018), (Rushton & King, 2020) Interventions targeting the modification of female students' perspectives on STEM jobs (Dönmez, 2023) Conducting a study on the differences in confidence, interest, and goals across genders in the STEM fields, and investigating how cultural and societal expectations impact women's participation in STEM (Chan, 2022) Adapting formal and extracurricular educational programs and STEM courses to attract more genders. Adapting programs to boost female STEM enrollment in specific contexts is crucial (Friedman-Sokuler & Justman, 2020), (Goreth & Vollmer, 2023), (Levine et al, 2015), (Price et al, 2019), (Sangar, 2022), (Schilling & Pinnell, 2018), http://ijlter.org/index.php/ijlter (Sevilla et al, 2023) Analyzing the influence of STEM educational programs on students' attitudes (Van Wassenaer et al, 2023) Conducting research on particular policies that have a strong likelihood of reducing obstacles encountered by women in the field of science (Greider et al, 2019) Creating and evaluating virtual STEM laboratories with the aim of engaging female students (Vergara, 2023) Conducting research on the emotional components of learning and students' attitudes toward STEM subjects (Pelch, 2018), (Zhou et al, 2019) Examining the factors contributing to disparities in gender representation in STEM fields (Delaney & Devereux, 2019), (Naukkarinen & Bairoh, 2020) Examining the impact of gender and nationality on the experiences of women in STEM fields (Lim et al, 2021) Conducting research on women's cognitive abilities, interests, beliefs, motivation, engagement, advantages, and challenges in STEM fields (Chiang et al, 2023),…”

International Perspectives about COVID-19, Digital Labour and Gender Work Pattern: A Collective Interview

“…There are certainly strong, unequal gender-specific work patterns that accompany digitalisation, including in the ICT and related sectors themselves, in both educational and vocational routes, and in employment and workplaces. Susanna Bairoh, whose PhD on women and girls in ICT, engineering, and STEM in Finland I am supervising, has just published on this in the Finnish situation (Naukkarinen, Bairoh 2020). Another area of unequal gender-specific work patterns and digitalisation is what happens in high-intensity business companies, where digitalisation operates in a profound way throughout almost all their work.…”

Cognitive Styles, Gender, and Student Academic Performance in Engineering Education

“…It was also of interest to this study to explore whether gender, academic probation status, and/or engineering major were associated with differences in students' cognitive styles and their academic performance. The second aim was motivated by the large body of knowledge that explores gender differences in engineering education, technology, and science (see for example [25][26][27][28][29]). Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore the nature of the relationship between students' cognitive styles and their academic performance in engineering education.…”