How Psychology Can Reduce the
Achievement Gap for Women in STEM
by Sarah D. Herrmann, Weber State University
In
her New York Times Op-Ed, Eileen Pollack said this of her experience in an
introductory Physics course at Yale in 1978:
The
boys in my introductory physics class, who had taken far more rigorous math and
science classes in high school, yawned as our professor sped through the
material, while I grew panicked at how little I understood. The only woman in
the room, I debated whether to raise my hand and expose myself to ridicule,
thereby losing track of the lecture and falling further behind.
Pollack’s
experience accurately describes the phenomenon of numerical underrepresentation
in a classroom; namely, awareness that you are the only (or one of the only)
people like you in a space. This can suggest that people like you don’t belong
or can’t be successful in that setting. Indeed, we see that while today, 50.3%
of STEM (i.e., science, technology, engineering, mathematics) degrees are
awarded to women, this varies by field. Women
receive over half of bachelor’s degrees in the biological sciences, but receive
far fewer in the computer sciences (17.9%), engineering (19.3%), physical
sciences (39%) and mathematics (43.1%). However, there is an increasing demand
for STEM graduates in the United States, as STEM careers are forecasted to
increase by 13% between 2017 and 2027. Research in the psychological sciences
can help us to understand some of the psychological phenomenon underlying these
educational disparities, and can suggest ways to change individual perceptions
that can increase belonging, performance, and persistence in these fields.
The cornerstone of the research on
women’s experience in STEM environments relates to stereotyping: the perceptions
of a group of people (e.g., women) as having less academic ability as a
function of their group identity. This can ultimately lead to disidentification
and dropout from these areas as a function of stereotype threat—a “threat in
the air”—that stems from fear of confirming a negative stereotype about one’s
group (Spencer, Steele, & Quinn, 1999; Steele & Aronson, 1995).
Research by Inzlicht and Ben-Zeev (2000) revealed that women performed more
poorly on a math section of the GRE when taking the test with two men, as
compared to two women. There were no such performance differences on a verbal
section of the GRE, as there are not stereotypes about women’s ability. What
could produce these differences in performance? Schmader and Johns (2003)
demonstrated that the effect of gender imbalance on performance on a math task
is explained by reduced working memory. Essentially, when one is afraid of
confirming a negative stereotype about their group, they have reduced working
memory to devote to difficult tasks, thereby impugning their performance.
Luckily, research points to several
ways that we can reduce the effects of stereotype threat. For example, Ben-Zeev
and colleagues (2017) demonstrated that just learning about stereotype threat
can reduce performance gaps. Additionally, if a task is reframed as not being
indicative of ability, the effect goes away (Good, Aronson, & Harder, 2008;
Quinn & Spencer, 2001; Spencer, Steele, & Quinn, 1999; Steele &
Aronson, 1995). Another strategy for reducing the effect of stereotype threat
is having participants make external, rather than internal, attributions for
difficulty; specifically, if a participant explains their performance in terms
of poor preparation (i.e., I didn’t study enough), there will be less effect of
stereotype threat than an internal attribution (i.e., I’m not a “math person”;
Ben-Zeev, Fein, & Inzlicht, 2005; Johns, Inzlicht, & Schmader, 2008;
Johns, Schmader, & Martens, 2005).
Another factor that accounts for
underperformance among women and underrepresented groups in STEM are feelings
of not belonging. We see, for example, situational cues such as numerical
underrepresentation of fellow students, graduate students, or professors can
indicate who belongs and who can be successful in a given environment (Abrams
& Hogg, 1999; Crocker et al., 1998; Inzlicht & Ben-Zeev, 2000; 2003;
Inzlicht & good, 2006; Major & O’Brien, 2005; Murphy, Steele, &
Gross, 2007; Sekaquaptewa & Thompson, 2003; Tajfel & Turner, 1986).
These assumptions begin early; for example, we see that by first grade,
children believe that boys are better than girls in math, science, programming,
and engineering (Master, Cheryan, & Meltzoff, 2017). One study by Murphy,
Steele, and Gross (2007) had STEM majors view a video depicting an upcoming summer
program that was either gender balanced or unbalanced (1 women to 4 men).
Results revealed that women STEM majors had higher heart rates, skin
conductance, and lower feelings of belonging wen watching the gender unbalanced
video, accounting for a physical side effect of underrepresentation.
Several psychological interventions
have successfully reduced the performance gaps between men and women related to
belonging. Walton, Logel, Peach, Spencer, and Zanna (2015) demonstrated that
hearing about the challenges that senior engineering students (both men and
women) faced at the beginning of college significantly increased women’s
engineering GPA. Additionally, exposure to a similar role model for women
increased identification with math and reduced concerns about gender
stereotyping (Ramsey, Betz, & Sekaquaptewa, 2013). Similarly, my colleagues
and I found that reading a brief, online story from a woman graduate student
about the challenges she experienced in introductory chemistry increased women’s
chemistry course grades and reduced their failure and withdrawal rate (Herrmann
et al., 2016). Role models are most effective if they are successful in an area
of mutual interest, accessible, and if they communicate past challenges. In
fact, encountering a woman role model who is not identifiable can actually
decrease women’s interest and perceived success in computer science (Cheryan,
Siy, Vichayapai, Drury, & Kim, 2011; Cheryan, Drury, & Vichayapai,
2013). Importantly, direct contact with a role model, while beneficial, is not
necessary.
These findings suggest that the
performance gap between men and women in STEM, especially in fields where
underrepresentation is more apparent, has as much or more to do with the
psychological experience of underrepresentation, rather than any inherent
differences in ability. Additionally, these sorts of interventions could easily
be incorporated into educational programs by balancing faculty and graduate
student or teaching assistant gender, encouraging external attributions for
poor performance, and providing formal or informal mentoring structures and
organizations for women in STEM.
