Parental support, self-efficacy beliefs, outcome expectations and interests in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)

Abstract

The main objective of the paper will be to analyze the influence of parental academic expectations and gender stereotypes in secondary education students' self-efficacy beliefs, outcome expectations, and interests. 2364 students in their final year of Lower Secondary Education participated in the study in Spain. Data have been analyzed combining three procedures: descriptive analysis, comparison of means and structural equation modeling. The results indicate that boys perceive higher parental support than girls in technology and computing. Regarding gender stereotypes, boys perceive higher parental gender stereotypes than girls in technology/computing and science. In our sample, perceived parental support and gender stereotypes do not have a direct influence on outcome expectations and interest, however, self-efficacy beliefs do influence outcome expectations and interest.