Exploring gender and self-confidence in engineering students: A multi-method approach

Abstract

Despite generally higher academic achievement, female students display lower academic selfconfidence than males. Of particular interest to engineering educators is the difference in confidence in mathematical or scientific skills. Gender differences among engineering students have been explored by the Persistence in Engineering survey, a component of the AcademicPathways Study (APS), a multi-method longitudinal study which is part of the Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education. This survey was administered to engineering students seven times during their college years, thus tracing students' confidence in math and science skills over time. Men had higher self-confidence in math and science throughout the four years (p<0.05 for gender by ANOVA), even when the dataset was limited to persisters (students whocompleted their engineering degree in this time). Similarly, the academic self-confidence of males in their ability to solve open-ended problems was higher than that of females. Student interviews, administered during the last semester of their senior year, provide additional evidence about confidence in engineering students, with marked differences in the responses of male and female students. This multi-method approach, utilizing the rich dataset of the Academic Pathways Study, enables us to consider approaches to understanding the 'confidence gap' in engineering students. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2009.