2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Gender Differences with Regards to Interest in STEM (Evaluation)

This paper will discuss the factors that influence the levels of interest in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) among high school and middle school students. Data for this research was collected during five summer engineering camps held at a local university as a part of the Department of Education’s Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEARUP) program. The camps were intended to help increase interest in STEM careers and STEM postsecondary education among high and middle school students. The weeklong summer camps were held in the years 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022, and 2023. Two years were skipped due to the COVID pandemic.

During the camps, the students participated in activities involving engineering research. The camps focused on a wide variety of topics including water and environmental engineering, rocket design, air quality, and electrical engineering.

Before and after each camp, the students completed surveys regarding their interest in STEM, the factors influencing that interest, and their friends’ and parents’ perceptions about STEM. Additionally, parents of the students were surveyed regarding their socioeconomic status, education, and perception of STEM.

Data from the 2017 and 2018 camps were analyzed in a previous paper by the same authors to find the most influential factors pertaining to the interest of male and female students in the STEM fields. In this proposed work, those sets of data will be analyzed again in conjunction with new data collected in the latest three camps (total n~130). Data is collected and analyzed as part of a longitudinal study. The analysis involves both quantitative and qualitative data which was collected simultaneously in a concurrent mixed methods research design. Both streams of data will be analyzed concurrently to offer a deeper understanding of what influences student interest in STEM.

Preliminary analysis showed that the factors that influence student interest in STEM were under the following main themes: Relationships/People, Future Prospects, Prior Interests/Hobbies, and Educational Experiences. A complete analysis of those themes, as well as the quantitative data, will be presented in this final paper.

We have the hypothesis that males who enter the camp, regardless of interest level, tend to maintain that interest level no matter whether the camp was a good experience or not, whereas females who enter the camp (in engineering; a male-dominated field [population-wise]) may have a more varied response (whether more positively or negatively affected) after the camp. We will look for indications that females felt more interested and more comfortable after attendance of the camp, but the opposite will be looked for as well. A qualitative search will look for clues of high-variance outcomes statistically as well as qualitatively with phrases such as “changed my opinion”, or “I quit!”, or even the words “female” or “male”, to see what comments there are about gender.