– High school math and science teacher gender affects student interest and self-efficacy in STEM. However, such effects become insignificant once teacher behaviors and attitudes are taken into account, thus pointing towards an omitted variables bias.
– Teacher beliefs about male and female ability in math and science – as well as how teachers treat boys and girls in the classroom – matter more than teacher’s own gender.
-Creating a positive learning environment and making math and science interesting are pivotal in engaging students in these subjects.
– Student interest and self-efficacy are substantially affected by teacher ability to make their subject interesting and to create a positive learning environment.
– Rather than hiring more female teachers or segregating students by gender, training teachers ( increasing empathy and reducing gender biases) could be more effective in increasing student self-efficacy and interest in STEM.
– What matters primarily in this context are not the role models played by teachers (or the stereotype threats), but the time and skills that instructors put in preparing their lectures and supporting their students.
2017 - Why does teacher gender matter?
Paredes (2014) formal framework on how teacher gender may affect student interest and self-efficacy. Framework states that teacher gender may affect students in a variety of ways; by acting as role models, reinforcing stereotype threats, and through teacher biases that are correlated with gender.
– High School Longitudinal Survey (HSLS:09) which is a nationally representative panel database including around 26,000 students from 940 private and public schools in 2009. The key feature of this database is that, for each 9th grader, both the math and the science teachers were interviewed in the baseline survey. Furthermore, students were asked to evaluate both teachers.
– Data are also available from student transcripts including their GPA, AP class grades, SAT scores, and the number of credits taken in each subject during high school.
DV: three different outcome variables.
The first is an indicator as to whether the 9th grader enjoys her math/science class.
The second alternative measure of student interest is whether the 9th grader’s favorite subject is math/science.
The third one is a measure of math and science self-efficacy (standardized to a mean of 0 and standard deviation of 1) constructed by applying principal component analysis to multiple inputs: whether the 9th grader is confident that she can do an excellent job in the math/science tests and assignments, master the skills in these courses, as well as whether she is certain that she can understand the textbooks in these classes. In other words, selfefficacy quantifies the level of student confidence in her own ability to perform certain tasks.
IV: Teacher gender, Teacher ability, Teacher behaviors and expectations (Students are asked whether their math and science teachers value and listen to their ideas, whether they treat male and female students differently, whether they make their subject interesting, and whether they think that every student can be successful), teacher believes boys are better in math/science, teacher treats boys/girls differently, etc.