Indonesian Students’ Attitude and Interest in STEM: An Outlook on The Gender Stereotypes in The STEM Field

Abstract

STEM education could be reckoned as a noble thing in the Indonesian Educational System in the last few years. This paper is a preliminary attempt to investigate the students’ attitude and interest in STEM regarding the gender perspective of Senior High School’s student in Malang, Indonesia. To explore the attitude and interest in the gender stereotypes, this quantitative method study has been conducted. 357 students participated in the survey which comprised 126 males and 231 females. The survey contended 40 items of belief’s indicators in the STEM field such as science, technology, engineering, mathematics and the STEM. Besides, at the end of the survey’s section, there are some options for future study programs and career to be selected by the learner. Unexpectedly, the finding of this project revealed that male has a more positive belief in the most of STEM field, such as technology, engineering, mathematics, and STEM, rather than female. In comparison, the female has a more positive belief than male in the science only. The marked investigation of emerging from the data comparison was both of male and female have a higher interest in the social field and medicine. However, the additional interest of male and female was significantly different. In males, we found that they have more interest in engineering, while females have an interest in biology. This study also disclosed that the factors, namely family support, family financial, friends, teachers, and hobby, determined both attitude and interest in STEM among students in Malang.