Health Science Reviews

By Zeeka Sellidon

There have been many advances in closing the gender equity gap between women and men across many fields that have empowered women and allowed them to break barriers that have existed for many years. However, a major underrepresentation of women in STEM studies still exists today. A recent study by the European commission showed that only 20-25% of STEM students are women which is interesting, considering that during schooling years, girls and boys usually take maths and science subject in equal numbers. This lessened representation of women in STEM studies increases the risk of women facing inequality in the field such as lower pay, fewer promotions and even hostile work environments. This issue not only affects women, but the STEM field too as it is a waste of talent and means slower economic growth.

This study performed by researchers at Frontiers in Psychology was designed to show experimental evidence on the role of stereotype threat as a potential barrier to women pursuing/enrolled in STEM studies. Researchers specifically looked at experimentally activated stereotypes and the way it affects math performance and persistence in female and male engineering students in a math task that required consistent effort. The study also tested if these effects were due to the strength and direction of the gender-science stereotypes held by the participants before handling the task. 

To investigate this problem, female and male engineering students were assigned to one of two experimental conditions, control vs. stereotype threat activation, randomly and their performance in Math Effort Task was compared. A second aim of the study was to assess to what degree the effects of the experimentally promoted threat were dependent on participants’ “pre-testing stereotypes”. The associations were expected to affect Math Effort Task performance in the threat, but in the control, condition. 

The experimental evidence provided in this study showed that some female engineering students are threatened by stereotypes about women’s math/science abilities which directly undermines their self-confidence. This often makes them self-select into less challenging options and significantly reduces their performance in high-demanding math activities. These results confirmed that stereotype threats have the potential to act as a barrier the STEM career development of women as well as foster an adverse environmental condition already enrolled in STEM studies, which contradicts the ‘girlboss’ image showing how insidious stereotypes can hinder potential. This research too emphasises the importance of fostering an environment that allows women to flourish without harmful stereotypes and how limiting hostile conditions that could potentially reduce the self-efficacy and engagement of women in STEM in both academic and professional settings.  

Table Between-group differences in overall M-MET scores 

Quantile	Comparison	p-value
Q25	M-StA vs. F.StA	0.015
Q50	M-StA vs. M-Con	0.014
	M-StA vs. F-Con	0.012
	M-StA vs. F-StA	<0.001
Q75	M-StA vs. M-Con	0.015
	M-StA vs F-Con	0.015
	M-StA vs F-StA	<0.001
	F-StA vs M.Con	0.015
	F-StA vs. F-Con	0.017

Above Table shows the p-values of only statistically significant different gender x group interactions in quantile-based ANOVAs comparing overall M-MET scores. M-Con, males assigned to the control experimental condition; MStA, males assigned to the stereotype activation condition; F-Con, females assigned to the control experimental condition; F-StA, females assigned to the stereotype activation condition.  

References:

1. Sebastián-Tirado A, Félix-Esbrí S, Forn C and Sanchis-Segura C. (2023) Are gender-science stereotypes barriers for women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics? Exploring when, how, and to whom in an experimentally controlled setting. Front. Psychol. 14:1219012. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1219012