@misc{10481/72854,
year = {2022},
month = {1},
url = {http://hdl.handle.net/10481/72854},
abstract = {The gender gap in STEM-related job positions is a fact, and it is closely related to the
low percentage of women studying STEM degrees. This poses a problem because Europe, as well
as the United States and the rest of the developed countries, keep demanding the best engineers
and scientists to continue developing innovative products. This problem can thus be approached
by answering, firstly, the following question: Why are women not studying STEM degrees? In
this paper, we summarize the factors, found in literature, that influence students—both boys and
girls—to not study STEM, particularly engineering, computer sciences and technology. We study
these influence factors in a sample of N = 338 students from a secondary school placed in the south of
Spain; we carry out a survey in order to find out if those students fill out the same answers other
researchers have found and published in the related literature. Our main conclusions are as follows:
The results confirm that the number of women in technical courses decreases when the level of the
course increases; the lack of role models is not an impediment for girls to feel comfortable; unlike
boys, girls will not choose engineering, even if their scoring in STEM is good; and we found that girls
and women see themselves as not capable of studying an engineering degree more than boys and
men do. These results contribute to a deeper understanding of the situation regarding the gender gap
in STEM fields in ages in which both girls and boys must choose their future studies.},
organization = {Junta de Andalucia	FQM-147},
organization = {Spanish Government	TIN2017-85727-C4-2-P},
publisher = {MDPI},
keywords = {STEM},
keywords = {Gender gap in STEM},
keywords = {Engineering perception},
keywords = {High school education},
keywords = {Women in science},
title = {Why Not STEM? A Study Case on the Influence of Gender Factors on Students’ Higher Education Choice},
doi = {10.3390/math10020239},
author = {De las Cuevas Delgado, Paloma and García Arenas, María Isabel and Rico Castro, Nuria},
}