Using experts to inoculate women’s self-concept in STEM
There is concern among many communities about the underrepresentation of women in the STEM fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. ‘For incoming generations of students who are being introduced to Science, Math, and Engineering, female scientists and experts are practically invisible, especially in higher education environments’ (Stout Dasgupta, Hunsinger & McManus, 2011, p. 256).
The effect of female role-models on students is an area of research that continues to be of interest to educators and academics. Stout et al. (2011, pp. 256-257) developed a Stereotype Inoculation Model which ‘integrates existing research on self-concept, stereotype threat, and role modeling to derive predictions about when and how changes in gender composition of stereotypically masculine STEM environments is likely to inoculate womens’ self concept and career goals’.
Three studies were undertaken to assess the effectiveness of the Stereotype Inoculation Model. All participants were university students from a large American university:
Study 1
The interaction between 72 female undergraduate students majoring in STEM disciplines and a male or female confederate, who was posing as an ‘advanced peer majoring in mathematics’ was explored (p. 258).
It was found that the participants who interacted with a female peer ‘expressed more positive implicit attitudes toward math, showed more implicit identification with math, and increased their effort on a very difficult math test compared with others who interacted with an advanced male peer’ (p. 260). However, ‘women’s implicit stereotypes about math did not change as a function of who they interacted with, suggesting that contact with a same-sex math peer expert inoculated women’s self-concept about math despite their awareness of negative ingroup stereotypes’ (p. 260).
Study 2
Female undergraduates with an engineering major read biographies of successful female or male engineers ‘who work in academia, industry or government’ (p. 260). There were 101 participants.
From this study it was suggested that ‘exposure to biographies of influential female engineers (compared with male engineers or engineering innovations) boosted female students’ implicit positive attitudes toward STEM. Moreover, in the female engineer condition, the more women identified with these same-sex experts the more they reported wanting to pursue STEM careers’ (p. 262).
Study 3
Male and female students from an introductory calculus class were ‘tracked’ over a period of months (p. 263). The 100 participants were taught by either a female or male professor. This calculus class was a prerequisite for all STEM majors in the physical sciences at the university. Students filled in surveys, allowed their grades to be analysed and were observed during their classes.
This study ‘revealed the benefit of contact with same-sex STEM experts on female students’ implicit self-concept and self-efficacy in maths’ (p. 266). It was also found that ‘even though the female students in this study clearly had strong ability in math and, as a group, outperformed their male peers, they were less confident about their performance when their professor was a man compared with when she was a woman’ (p. 267). Female students also became more responsive in class when their professors were female but other female students became more avoidant with their male professors, in terms of help-seeking after class.
General discussion
Several discussion points were drawn from the results of the three studies combined. (The following dot points are quotes from page 268 of the study):
• ‘When women encountered other women who were experts in science, math, and engineering, they expressed more positive implicit attitudes toward STEM (Studies 1, 2, and 3), showed more implicit identification with these disciplines (Studies 1 and 3), exerted more effort on difficult math tests (Study 1), and felt more efficacious about their ability and future performance (Study 3) compared with other women who encountered male STEM experts’
• ‘The presence versus absence of same-sex experts was far more impactful for women than for men’
• ‘All three studies consistently showed that seeing same versus opposite-sex experts in STEM did not change students implicit or explicit stereotypes of these disciplines as masculine domains’
• ‘Seeing female role models acts as a metaphorical antibody that protects womens’ self-conceptions in STEM from becoming vulnerable to societal stereotypes that are very active in their minds’
• ‘Exposure to same-sex versus opposite-sex experts enhanced women’s subjective identification with those STEM experts (Studies 2 and 3), which in turn bolstered their self-efficacy in and implicit identification with STEM and predicted more commitment to pursue future STEM careers (Study 2)’
• ‘These findings suggest that increased self-efficacy and implicit domain identification translated into behavioral engagement in class and intentions to pursue STEM after college—all of this, over time, is likely to increase female students’ commitment to STEM disciplines and careers in the future’
Conclusions
These studies demonstrate that ‘women’s implicit self-perceptions and attitudes were profoundly affected by the presence versus absence of female experts’ (p. 269). The researchers commented that women may therefore be leaving STEM fields because of the ‘absence of same-sex others in expert roles’ (p. 269).
The combined results of these studies affirm the role of single-sex schools in encouraging girls to pursue study and careers in STEM fields. ‘Seeing other successful women in STEM promises to free young women in the present generation from a societally constrained view of their abilities’ (p. 269). This research also encourages educators within our schools to continue to actively promote the role of women in these fields. ‘Increasing the visibility of a critical mass of female scientists, engineers, and mathematicians, and providing women opportunities to have personal contact with them, has a profound positive effect on young women’s self-perceptions in science, math, and engineering’ (p. 269).
Stout, J., Dasgupta, N., Hunsinger, M., & McManus, M. (2011). STEMing the tide: Using ingroup experts to inoculate women’s self-concept in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(2), 255-270. doi: 10.1037/a0021385