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

Yuko Ikkatai,Atsushi Inoue,Azusa Minamizaki,Hiromi M Yokoyama,Euan Mckay,Kei Kano,Andrew R Dalby

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0252710

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.

Highlights

IntroductionA study targeted upper secondary school students and followed them for five years in Germany investigated whether providing income information changed high school students’ choice of field of study [7]
Changing attitudes by providing informationInformation stimuli can influence attitudes
We investigated whether the gender equality information provided related to the listing of the factors, increased the motivation of junior high school students to choose

Summary

Introduction

A study targeted upper secondary school students and followed them for five years in Germany investigated whether providing income information changed high school students’ choice of field of study [7]. They gave a 20-minute presentation on income information that included the relationship between a major subject of study and later income as well as a one-page flyer with general information on college attendance and a list of websites for financial aid. The results showed that providing income information significantly affected only male student’s choices of fields of study. Male students in the experimental group chose majors leading to better-paid careers, but this trend was not observed in female students [7]

Methods

Results

Conclusion