Students' Perceptions of Their Classroom Participation and Instructor as a Function of Gender and Context

Beneath the numbers: A review of gender disparities in undergraduate education across science, technology, engineering, and math disciplines

“…Studies using student self-reported participation in college STEM classrooms have shown that female students across disciplines report lower participation or less comfort with participation when compared with males [35,36]. This appears to be true even in STEM disciplines with large (Table continued) numbers of females: we found self-reported participation differences between males and females in multiple large introductory biology classes [38].…”

“…Participation and engagement within one's discipline has been shown to predict retention [45,46]. In addition, participation can be an important indicator of other affective measures such as a student's perception of and anxiety about performance in a STEM course [35,47]. In this article, we focus on participation in the classroom setting because most studies have been done in this context.…”

Origins of the Gender Gap: Pre-College and College Influences on Differences Between Men and Women

“…Studies that focus on college students provide abundant evidence of gender differences, reporting that compared to men, women struggle more with developing autonomy and separating from their parents (Josselson, 1987), report more emotional distress (Sax, Bryant, and Gilmartin, 2004;Sax, Lindholm, Astin, Korn, and Mahoney, 2002), choose stereotypically ''feminine '' majors (Dawson-Threat and Huba, 1996;Jacobs, 1996), express less confidence in their self-assessments (Clark and Zehr, 1993;Smith, Morrison, and Wolf, 1994), are more politically liberal (Astin, 1993;Pascarella and Terenzini, 1991;Smith et al, 1994), and have different styles of learning and ways of knowing (Baxter Magolda, 1992;Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule, 1997;Crombie, Pyke, Silverthorn, Jones, and Piccinin, 2003). Further, research on college impact has found gender to predict such college outcomes as satisfaction, G.P.A., degree completion, career choice, and earnings (Astin, 1993;Jacobs, 1996).…”

Gender, Psychosocial Dispositions, and the Academic Achievement of College Students

“…Simply put, students with better developed coping and academic control strategies and those with higher self-esteems have higher academic achievement than students who lack these dispositions (Brooks 1982;Crombie et al 2003;Heyman et al 2002;Jacobs 1996;Perry et al 2005;Sigmon et al 1995;Tamres et al 2002). This research also suggests that the psychosocial dispositions act as mediating pathways between the students' demographic characteristics (parental education, age, and gender, for example), academic programs (arts or sciences, for example), and their academic achievement in college.…”