Abstract
Relatively little empirical research has analyzed the sources of students’ self-perceptions outside the US and Europe, and in new fields of study like renewable energy. This paper aims at filling this gap by identifying differences in self-efficacy levels of post-graduate students in Erasmus+ capacity-building programs on renewable energy in Argentinian and Guatemalan universities. We analyzed a sample of 43 students to test intersectional differences in self-efficacy, looking at students’ gender, country of origin, and maternal employment. Using the New General Self-Efficacy scale, we performed the t-test to compare mean differences in self-efficacy, and one-way and two-way ANOVA tests to check the consistency of the results. Our estimates did not show significant gender gaps in self-efficacy among renewable-energy post-graduate students, but they did uncover relevant country differences in mean self-efficacy levels, mainly due to differences in socio-economic indicators and gender norms between the two countries analyzed. Moreover, we found a mediating role of maternal employment in cross-country self-efficacy differences, whereas the characteristics of fathers appeared uninfluential. We conclude by stressing the importance of intersectional analysis in terms of country of origin, family backgrounds, and gender norms to increase knowledge about differences in self-efficacy of students.
Highlights
The role of students’ self-efficacy, or personal beliefs about their own capabilities, in the learning process has long been investigated (van Dinther et al 2011; van den Heuvel et al 2015)
The main goal of DIEGO is the implementation of new and innovative post-graduate courses in universities located in Argentina and Guatemala to train future experts in the renewable and green-energy sectors
Given the main differences between Argentina and Guatemala in higher education systems and gender equality indexes, in this paper, we propose an empirical analysis to better understand the link between levels of self-efficacy and personal and social environmental backgrounds of students involved in international higher education programs in renewable energy (RE)
Summary
The role of students’ self-efficacy, or personal beliefs about their own capabilities, in the learning process has long been investigated (van Dinther et al 2011; van den Heuvel et al 2015). Researchers have found that teaching practices and classroom climate (Carol et al 2001), as well as students’ personal characteristics such as gender (Pajares and Miller 1994; Pajares 2002), ethnicity (Cuellar 2014) and parents’ education (Santiago and Einarson 1998; Riggio and Desrochers 2006), are associated with higher student self-efficacy. This paper extends those efforts by widening the breadth of the research focus to contexts different from the US and Europe, as recommended in Roy et al (2019), and analyzing a new field of study: renewable energy (RE). As pointed out by Charles and Bradley (2009), the few women in male-dominated fields might regard themselves as “exceptional women” and as “pioneers”, and the tendency might be stronger
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