Exploring the relationships among performance on engineering tasks, confidence, gender and first year persistence

Abstract

In this exploratory study our analyses show that although first-year women performed equally well as their male counterparts on an engineering task, they reported significantly lower self-ratings of confidence in their intellectual and technical abilities (math and science) than men, yet still persisted at the same rate as their male counterparts during the first year. These findings stand in contrast to other studies which have shown self-confidence to be positively related with successful achievement of goals (i.e. performing an engineering task successfully, graduating from an engineering program). Therefore, we seek to explain this apparent contradiction through expectancy and cognitive dissonance theory and suggest that first year programs have a unique opportunity to help students by aligning their expectations with engineering school experience and increasing the potential for successful completion of an engineering program. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2007.