Effect of providing gender equality information on students’ motivations to choose STEM

Abstract

The social climate for women studying STEM subjects is changing, but the proportion of women taking STEM subjects in Japan is small. Only 27.9% of university students in the department of science is women in 2019. In this study, we used an online survey to investigate whether randomly providing three types of gender equality information increased the motivation of junior high school students to choose STEM subjects and the motivation of their parents to support that choice. Information on STEM, especially about social equality, and information on math stereotypes and STEM occupations, increased students’ motivations for studying STEM. This suggests that providing gender equality information is an effective way to change students’ attitudes toward STEM.

A Study on the Influence of the Affective Domain on the Attitudes of Middle School Students toward Mathematics from a Gender Perspective

“…The said approach explains why most of the participants naturally envisioned the man as a STEM professional and validates the strong influence of the stereotypical male role model in STEM fields. On the other hand, Ikkatai et al [21] suggest that the lack of female role models is related to women's disinterest in STEM, adding to the notion that selecting the man reflects the image of a traditional role model.…”