Do visits from women in STEM change girls' career plans?
After meeting female STEM professionals at school, girls endorsed math gender stereotypes less and reported more interest in STEM degrees, especially when the role models stressed social skills.
Source
Girls in STEM: Is It a Female Role-Model Thing?
Study at a glance
- Design
- Other — One-group pre-test/post-test evaluation of school visits by female STEM role models (no control group), analysed with structural equation models
- N
- N=304 · 304 girls surveyed 1 week before and 1 month after the sessions
- Population
- Girls aged 12 to 16 at 16 public and private schools across Spain
- Outcome
- Math gender stereotypes, math enjoyment, importance, expectations of success, and likelihood of choosing a STEM degree
Structured fields used in claim comparison tables when every cited study has a complete layer.
What they did
The researchers surveyed Spanish schoolgirls before and after sessions in which three women working in STEM visited their school to talk about their careers. Questionnaires based on expectancy-value theory measured stereotypes about math ability, math enjoyment, importance, expectations of success, and how likely girls were to choose a STEM degree. Structural equation models tested how these were linked, whether the links changed after the sessions, and whether sessions seen as emphasising teamwork and communication skills had stronger effects.
What they found
Before and after the sessions, stereotypes predicted lower STEM choice, mostly indirectly through lower expectations of success; enjoyment and importance did not directly predict STEM choice. After the sessions, stereotype endorsement fell and enjoyment, importance, expectations and STEM choice all rose, and the link from expectations to STEM choice became stronger. Among girls who saw the role models as highly counterstereotypical, expectations and STEM choice increased more and the expectations-to-choice link was stronger.
The limits
What it doesn't show
There was no control group, because the programme considered random assignment unethical, so the changes could reflect other events, maturation or simply answering the survey twice. Schools were self-selected, and the follow-up was only one month, so we do not know whether effects last or turn into actual degree choices. The 'counterstereotypical' grouping was based on girls' own perceptions after the session, not a manipulated feature of the talks, and the text gives no effect sizes for the mean changes.
Key terms
- Expectancy-value theory
- A model saying choices depend on how well people expect to do and how much they value the task (enjoyment, importance, usefulness).
- Role model
- A person whose example others may emulate; here, women working in STEM careers.
- Counterstereotypical
- Going against a stereotype, such as a STEM professional stressing teamwork and social skills.
- One-group pre-test/post-test design
- Measuring the same group before and after an intervention without a comparison group.
- Structural equation modelling
- A statistical method that tests a network of relationships among several measured and latent variables at once.
- Moderator
- A variable that changes the strength or direction of a relationship between two other variables.
Flashcards
0 of 11 answers reviewed
Research intelligence for this paper
See its role on concept claims, tensions it is part of, placement history, and related discoveries.
Quiz yourself
What design did this study use?
Common questions
Does this prove role-model visits cause girls to choose STEM?
No. Without a control group, the before-after changes are suggestive but could have other causes, and actual degree choices were not tracked.
Which motivation mattered most for STEM choice?
Expectations of success in maths; enjoyment and importance did not directly predict STEM choice in this model.
What kind of role model seemed most effective?
Ones girls saw as emphasising communication, teamwork and social skills as part of STEM work.
More on Academic motivation