WOMEN’S PARTICIPATION IN SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY ENGINEERING AND MATHEMATICS (STEM) EDUCATION: A REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Abstract

Globally, women are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. Although women’s participation in higher education is increasing, they are still significantly underrepresented in STEM fields. It is important to understand the forces at play, which drive women's choice of STEM education. A variety of factors impact the choice of females to take STEM path including personal (I.e. self-concept, self-efficacy, personal preferences, self-stereotyping and intrinsic motivation) as well as the external factors (i.e. role models, family, teacher’s influence as well as low recruitment of women in STEM fields). This paper systematically reviews the literature on young women’s intention to undertake STEM education in Malaysian context. The paper has adopted the PRISMA protocol for Systematic Literature Review (SLR). The paper has identified 10 research papers which have attempted to identify the factors effecting female participation in STEM education in Malaysian context. Furthermore, the paper has also highlighted the factors which have been identified by these studies as well as those personal and external factors which have not been studied extensively in Malaysian context. This paper can give readers a novel insight about factors influencing women’s participation in STEM education in Malaysian context