Gender, self‐efficacy and achievement among South African Technology teacher trainees

Abstract

This article considers the relationship between gender and self‐efficacy in teacher trainees engaged in an electricity‐related design and construction task. Quantitative data (examination scores, task assessment, and questionnaire) and qualitative data (interviews and written student reflections) were collected. There is a gender bias in student teachers entering the University with more male than female students having done Science to grade 12 level. In addition, the continuing differential in standards of education in South African schools necessitated distinguishing those who had attended educationally advantaged from those who had attended educationally disadvantaged schools. In the examination, a test of theoretical knowledge, male students in each group outperformed female students. This we explain in terms of school background, gender responses from family members who regarded Science as a male domain, and the resulting lower self‐efficacy of female students. However, female students achieved as well as male students in the design and construction task. We argue that although males had better self‐efficacy levels than females at the outset, the hands‐on, individual nature of a task in a domain usually constructed as male led to female students developing increased levels of self‐efficacy, which ensured task performance matching that of the more knowledgeable male students.