– Stigma consciousness (in the form of awareness of sexism and negative attitudes about women), but not stereotype vulnerability, negatively related to women’s confidence in their abilities to complete a college degree in a engineering major field.
– The lack of relationship between academic self-efficacy and stereotype vulnerability suggests that stereotype vulnerability does not directly influence self-efficacy beliefs. . Given that stereotype vulnerability was significantly related to both stigma consciousness and coping with barriers, it could be that the direct effects of stereotype vulnerability within the SCCT model were not captured.
– Results for self-efficacy for coping with barriers demonstrated a significant relationship to academic self-efficacy for STEM.
– The results uncover the existence of negative relationships between consciousness of discrimination due to group identity and academic self-efficacy. Promoting positive identity and constructive interaction with the environment may support women’s career development in engineering fields.