– Self-efficacy levels did not correlate with the participants’ enrollment in advanced STEM courses and extracurricular activities.
– Two themes emerged in interviews: the roles of the personal landscape (e.g., resilient mindset) and the social landscape (e.g., peer interactions).
– Positive social change may be achieved by supporting a greater percentage of women who can pursue STEM career opportunities.
– The correlation between the 35 participants’ self-efficacy levels and the number of advanced STEM courses and extracurricular activities they enrolled was not statistically significant.
– The correlation between self-efficacy and the number of advanced science courses and between self-efficacy and the number of advanced STEM courses were not statistically significant.
– The theme of social landscape was derived from four repeating codes found throughout each of the interviews: role models, peers, school culture, and larger societal culture.
– The influence of the familial role model seems to be support and passive observation by participants.
– Participants discussed their teachers “passion,” “encouragement,” and “introduction of STEM
majors.” Interestingly, only one teacher was mentioned by name and the theme that emerged was more that teachers in general exposed students to a variety of courses and ideas rather than a defining characteristic of a type of teacher, for example gender, background, or postsecondary degree.
2017 - The Relationship Between Self-Efficacy and Advanced STEM Coursework in Female Secondary Students
PART 1:
The setting for the study was a rural New England high school. The quantitative sample population were all female students, 18 years of age, at the study site. There were 194 students in the 12th grade class, approximately 93 total female students and 82 who were 18 at the time of the study.
DV: enrollment in advanced STEM coursework and extracurricular activities (operationalized using a count of the number of courses a student was enrolled in)
IV: Self-efficacy (measured using the Science Motivation Questionnaire II (SMQII) which measures
motivation using a 5-point Likert scale)
PART 2:
For the qualitative study, female students having enrolled in 3 or more advanced STEM courses over the course of grades 9-12 were purposefully sampled, giving a sample size of 14. An initial random sample of 5 from within the purposeful sample was selected, then 2 more random students were added for a final sample of 7.
Interviews were conducted at the target site or the local library, each lasting approximately 15-20 minutes. Interviews occurred outside of school hours. All interviewees were asked the same set of questions.