Impact of Self-efficacy on Interest and Choice in Engineering Study and Careers for Undergraduate Women Engineering Students

Self-efficacy refers to the belief in a persons’ ability to perform a specific task. Starting in middle school, girls tend to underestimate their abilities in STEM. This confidence gap among girls persists through high school into college [1]. This gap is presumed to be partially responsible for the gender gap in engineering and other STEM fields (e.g. computer science, physics). In 2006, women only earned 19.5% of the undergraduate BS engineering degrees in the U.S. Using the Life Course Expectancy Framework, this paper investigates the motivations of women students at San José State University to pursue engineering careers, including their level of self-efficacy and sources of academic support, and the cultural influences that shape their interest and choice in engineering disciplines and careers for women. Using an adapted version of the Engineering Student Annual Survey, developed by the NSF-funded Assessing Women and Men in Engineering, the researchers explored the personal and cultural motivations of female students at San José State University. With a highly diverse student population in the College of Engineering and across the university, the researchers have been able to delve into the relationship between cultural expectations and STEM aspirations. The authors examined data from student Longitudinal Assessment of Engineering Self-Efficacy (LAESE)surveys. Despite the shrinking number of women engineering students at San José State University , the selfefficacy levels of the women engineering students were high. The authors can surmise that women who choose to study engineering at SJSU feel confident in their abilities to succeed in engineering and or project such confidence given the male-dominated terrain of Engineering. A. Theoretical basis for the research There is little empirical research on the specific impact of cultural attitudes about gender roles on girls’ interest and career choice in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields, particularly about STEM interest and career choice for young women of color. Cultural attitudes about gender roles refer to “beliefs and expectations about what is appropriate for males and females in terms of behavior and, in this case, career choice goals” in specific racial and ethnic communities [2]. Research has shown that female students pursue a much narrower set of career opportunities than do boys and, in the labor force, only six percent of women are employed in “non-traditional careers”. Also, female students are “more likely to be derailed by negative perceptions of their abilities, attributing setbacks to personal failure” [3]. Attitudes towards STEM fields also differ among students of color, where messages from different groups and communities can conflict with each other and result in a “subtractive education” [4]. Cultural influences such familial obligations and culturally specific gender roles play a significant role in shaping Latina girls’ career choices [5] and can create added pressure to reconcile careers with cultural values [6][7]. Recently, researchers have focused their attention to the career self-efficacy of women of color. Latina engineering students have been found to have lower levels of engineering career selfefficacy and self-efficacy for requirements in their academic programs. Starting in middle school, girls tend to underestimate their abilities in STEM [8]. This confidence gap among girls persists through high school into college [9]. This confidence gap is presumed to be partially responsible for the gender gap in engineering and other STEM fields (e.g. computer science, physics) [10].In 2009, women earned only 17.8% of bachelor’s degrees in engineering in the U.S. [11]. Although recent research indicates that the confidence gap may be closing (see Rittmayer et al [12] for a review), the numbers of women choosing engineering careers has not appreciable changed. Self-efficacy refers to the belief in a person’s ability to perform a specific task [13]. It is defined as one’s individual judgment about the ability to plan and implement a series of actions required to reach a specific goal [14]. Self-efficacy is a predictor of academic achievement [15]; and, in STEM fields, individuals with high levels of self-efficacy have higher performance levels [16][17][18][19] and longer persistence in STEM fields than those with lower levels of selfefficacy [20]. Research into the self-efficacy of women engineering students has shown mixed results. Many women who leave engineering have less confidence than those who stay in engineering although their performance is the same or better than students who stay [21][22][23][24]. Also, some studies have reported that women in STEM disciplines have lower levels of self-efficacy than men [25][26][27]. However, other research has shown there is no statistically significant difference in self-efficacy between men and women engineering students [28][29]. Below, we will highlight some of the recent research in this area. A six-year study of STEM students at the University of Washington [30] found that most women who switched out of engineering (77.9%) cited discouragement and a loss of self-efficacy as factors. Marr and Bogue [31] conducted a longitudinal study of women engineering student selfefficacy using data from five institutions across the U.S. The results of their study of 164 women engineering students showed there was a positive increase in self-efficacy among students in three self-efficacy measures (coping self-efficacy, second engineering self-efficacy, and math outcomes expectations) and reduced self-efficacy in feelings of inclusion in engineering. In contrast, Reisberg et al. conducted a study analyzing the effect of gender on a range of related supports to explain three dimensions of self-efficacy: work, career, and academic within undergraduate engineering [32]. Their survey respondents totaled in 990 sophomore students, 216 of which were female. Their findings sustain prevailing research results suggesting that women have lower academic self-efficacy than men at the beginning of their undergraduate engineering careers. This is congruence with a study done of 519 undergraduate engineering majors’ self-efficacy belief at a Midwestern university. In this study, Barrow and Concannon [33] found that there was no significant disparity of mean engineering self-efficacy scores by gender, ethnicity or transfer status. However, it was found that women had a lower mean coping self-efficacy than men. This suggests a lower persistence rate in engineering majors. For the past two decades, the percent of engineering degrees awarded to women in the U.S. has stagnated at a level of less than 20%, in spite of the fact that high school girls have been taking more mathematics and science classes than ever before [34]. The National Center for Education Statistics at the U.S. Department of Education found that female high school graduates earned slightly more credits in mathematics and science than male high school graduates.[35] Yet, they are less likely to pursue an career in math, science, or engineering than their male peers. The College of Engineering at San José State University has also witnessed an overall decrease in the number of women engineering students, dropping from 19% in 2001 to 14% in 2011. Table 1. Women Undergraduates in the College of Engineering at San José State University B. Research questions As part of its continual improvement process, the College of Engineering at San José State University undertook an in-depth study to analyze the experiences and perceptions of women undergraduate engineering students at San José State University. For this study, there were two research questions. Research Question 1. What motivates Women students to pursue Engineering careers? Research Question 2. What are the cultural influences that shape interest and choice in Engineering study and careers for Women students?