A non-conformist choice: how young women studying science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in technical institutes in Ghana navigate their education and career decision

ABSTRACT

The study discussed in this paper investigated how young women studying science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses in upper secondary technical institutes in Ghana made their education and career decisions. The study interviewed 26 young women to explore and understand the processes they navigated to choose STEM in TVET. The findings from an interpretative phenomenological analysis are grounded in these young women’s distinct social, political, and cultural experiences in Ghana. Nonetheless, the results provide evidence and knowledge that could inform policies, practices, and interventions to increase the participation of other young women in STEM-related TVET courses. The concluding section discusses recommendations from the experiences of these young women and the relevance of the processes and steps identified in the study to increase young women’s participation in STEM-related TVET.

KEYWORDS:

• STEM
• TVET
• young women
• education decisions career decisions

Introduction

The global aspiration and investment in girls’ education, particularly science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), have grown over the last few decades. In the era of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), about 40% of girls are in pre-tertiary education (UNESCO 2018). However, girls are less likely to choose and access STEM courses (UNESCO 2018; Wingate 2017). For example, about 35% of women in higher education choose to study STEM globally, except for biology, which has a higher female enrolment (WISE 2015). Engineering, manufacturing, and construction courses have the lowest female enrolment – globally, only 27% of students are female, compared to 73% of male students (Wingate 2017). Country-specific data shows that only 16% of females enrol in natural science, mathematics, and statistics in Côte d’Ivoire (Wingate 2017). Globally, only 27% of students in these courses are female, compared to 73% of male students (Wingate 2017). Wingate (2017) further uses country-specific data to show that only 16% of females enrol in natural science, mathematics, and statistics in Côte d’Ivoire (Wingate 2017).

Moreso, females are unlikely to enrol in TVET courses that require STEM training (henceforth STEM-related TVET) (UNESCO-UNEVOC 2019). The estimated proportion of female student enrolment in STEM-TVET is about 2.6% (UNESCO-UNEVOC 2019; UNESCO, 2016), with the lowest enrolment being in sub-Saharan Africa. For instance, fewer than 3% of females in Kenya enrol in engineering and building construction TVET courses (Ngugi 2017). Ghana records a similar situation with low participation of women in careers such as technicians and associate professionals, plant and machine operators and assemblers (Atsu and Lartey 2018). Many stakeholders are vested in addressing this gap through policy and practice.

Researchers continue to explore the barriers that hinder girls and women from participating in STEM education and careers. There is considerable knowledge and understanding of some social barriers that hinder the participation of women and girls in STEM and TVET, such as STEM stereotyping and misconceptions. Yet there is a gap in the literature on how researchers can extrapolate factors that enable some girls and women to choose STEM education and career pathways despite the constraints they experience and the associated lessons and implications for policymaking. Therefore, this paper sets out to contribute to the existing literature by answering the research question: ‘How do young women choose STEM-TVET courses in technical institutes in Ghana?’ In answering this question, the research identified the potential enablers that positively reinforce the decision of the research participants to study STEM in technical institutes in Ghana. Second, the research aims to understand how these young women navigate the constraints they may face in pursuing their STEM-TVET aspirations.

The study drew on the expectancy-value theory of achievement-related choice as the theoretical framework to answer the research question (Eccles 1987; Allan, Wigfield and Eccles 1994). The expectancy-value theory of achievement-related choice explained how 26 young women navigated contextual circumstances to choose STEM-TVET courses in Ghana. The interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was the methodological framework for the study (Smith, Flowers, and Larkin 2009). The paper continues with a discussion on the context of upper secondary STEM-TVET education in Ghana. Afterwards, the theoretical framework, the method, and the justifications for employing these tools to analyse the narratives are discussed. The findings and discussion section delves into the five core themes from the interpretative phenomenological analysis. Finally, the concluding section discusses the recommendations and implications of the findings.

Upper secondary STEM-related TVET provision in Ghana

Ghana’s upper secondary TVET system is a formal school-based system (see Figure 1). The Ghana Education Service (GES) is the authorised national-level agency that works with other government agencies, such as the Commission of TVET and the Ghana TVET service, to provide school-based upper secondary education (Darvas and Palmer 2014). The upper secondary TVET system consists of two pathways: Technical Institutes and Technical Senior High Schools. Technical institutes are pure TVET schools that provide comprehensive vocational courses such as business, fashion design and catering, and technical courses in engineering and technology. Technical senior high schools provide the courses mentioned above combined with other general academic courses such as economics, biology, literature, and languages (UNESCO-UNEVOC 2016).

Figure 1. Ghana’s TVET formal, non-formal and informal system.

Source: UNESCO-UNEVOC (2016)

Technical institute students who are usually between the ages of 13 to 18 years engage in school-based TVET for three years, and after successful completion of prescribed theory and practice examinations, they receive certifications recognised by higher education institutions and employers (Wojcichowsky 2016; Gyimah-Brempong 2017). In many cases, STEM provision in technical institutes involves the application of science through technology and engineering-focused programmes. According to GES records, there are currently 47 technical institutes across Ghana that offer about 22 STEM programmes. Some of these STEM programmes include autobody works, motor vehicle engineering, welding, and fabrication technology, diesel-mechanical/heavy engine, heavy-duty auto-mobile, industrial mechanics mechanical, engineering technology, minor engine repair, electrical engineering technology, and electrical machine/motor rewinding. Others are agricultural mechanisation technology, refrigeration & air-conditioning technology, electronics engineering, computer hardware technology, information technology, computer networking, software development, database management, digital designing technology, plumbing and gas fitting technology, building construction technology, and architectural drafting.

It is important to note that generally, each technical institute offers at least four STEM-related courses but not all the STEM courses mentioned above. Although the general expectation is for girls and boys to access STEM in technical institutes, analysis of available data from the 2017/2018 upper secondary school enrolment data from the Ministry of Education in Ghana shows that most technical institutes have an average girl-to-boy enrolment ratio of 3:50, respectively. The following section discusses how education and career decision-making have been conceptualised in the literature.

Theoretical framework: expectancy-value achievement-related choice

In recent decades, researchers have employed different concepts to understand the education and career decisions among young people. The common approaches throughout the literature are the individual and social approaches. A few overarching theoretical perspectives, such as the expectancy-value theory of achievement-related choice provide such an interdependent approach to education and career decision-making by using different subjective and social factors to explain education and career decision as an achievement-related choice (Eccles 1994; Eccles et al. 2011b). The expectancy-value of achievement-related choice theory argues that a child’s expectations of success and subjective task values underpin their education and career choices (Eccles 1987). Eccles and her colleagues explain the concept of expectations of success as the subjective belief in one’s ability to succeed on a task. On the other hand, the subjective task value refers to the anticipated fulfilment, importance and meaning attributed to a task (Eccles 1987). Eccles (2011b, 511) explains that these two concepts fundamentally expound the ‘psychological influences, social roles, and socialisation processes that drive educational and occupational choices in multiple contexts.’ Three reasons make this theory an appropriate theoretical framework for the current study. First, the principal proponent, Eccles, explains that she started to conceptualise the theory based on her experience as a visiting teacher in Ghana, which is the context of the current research. She explains that she experienced firsthand how gender roles and social structures define educational choices for girls (Eccles 2011a). Second, the theory has feminist underpinnings that inclusively address gendered norms and how these social structures influence the education and occupational choices of girls and women (Eccles 2011b). The theory considers various factors, including motivation, aspirations, social norms, cultural beliefs, aptitude, and attitudes (Ball et al. 2017; Liben and Coyle 2014; Wigfield, Tonk, and Eccles 2004). Finally, the theory investigates the individual dynamics of education and career choices by making the child’s agency, value, and expectations central to the process rather than considering or measuring other factors, such as economic outcomes and the value of skills for national development which drive other approaches like the human capital theory.

The theory operationalises 10 social and subjective components that can influence a child’s achievement-related choice. The 10 components are (a) cultural, social milieu, (b) socialiser’s beliefs and behaviours, (c) stable child characteristics, (d) previous achievement-related experiences, (e) child’s perception of social factors, (f) child’s interpretation of experience, (g) child’s goals and general self-schemata, (h) child’s affective reactions and motives, (i) activity specific ability, (j) self-concept and expectations of success and (k) relative subjective task value. Eccles and her colleagues discuss these 10 components as a model that provides a comprehensive schema to interpret the various factors navigated and considered to make education and career choices. In the current research, these components help the researcher study how young women in Ghana chose STEM-related TVET courses. Therefore, the current study is premised on the notions that: first, young women do not choose STEM-related education and careers in a vacuum; second, social forces impinge on their abilities, biological predispositions, and psychological traits to make education and career decisions. Third, social factors do not work in isolation; policies and political structures impinge on social factors to define the outcomes of young women’s STEM-related TVET education and career decisions. Despite the theory’s strengths, it fails to explore how students evaluate different factors and alternatives when making educational choices. There is also a limitation on how a child makes education and career decisions in a context where access to adequate information about education and careers is inadequate with little or no guidance and counselling services. Meyer, Fleckenstein, and Köller (2019) argue that identifying the multiplicative conditions that define education and career decisions in different settings is challenging for different reasons. Therefore, this study will identify and evaluate these factors identified by the expectancy-value achievement-related choice in Ghana through the perspectives of these young women who study STEM-related TVET courses.

Method

The random purposeful sampling method appeared adequate for the current study due to the scarce nature of the population of interest (Miles and Huberman 1994). The random purposeful sampling method is a combination of a purposeful sampling approach and a simple random sampling approach to select a unique sample. The random purposeful sampling process involved using the extreme case sampling technique as the purposeful sampling approach to identify and select the technical institutes in the Central and Northern regions of Ghana as appropriate cases to study because they presented extreme cases of the topic in Ghana. As Robinson (2014) suggests, and in alignment with the effort of the study to identify cases to learn the most from, the extreme case sampling techniques made it possible to locate the cases that exhibited the extreme nature of the phenomenon of inquiry. In this case, engaging participants in the Central region of Ghana, historically described as the centre of formal upper secondary education in Ghana yet with the lowest participation of females in STEM-related TVET, presented a case of curiosity to learn the most. The Central region became an important case to extrapolate the factors driving the problem in such a context where formal education is high (Opoku 2016). The Northern region other hand is historically classified as a disadvantaged region when it comes to education in Ghana, therefore, it was important to also investigate how young women chose STEM-related TVET in the region. All three technical institutes in the Central region conveniently participated in the study while only one technical institute in the Northern region conveniently participated. The next step was to draw random participants from the identified case of young women from participating schools for the interview using simple random generated numbers (Onwuegbuzie and Leech 2007). The sample of young women had similar demographics. The participants’ age range was between 14 years to 21 years selected across first, second and final-year students in participating schools. Most of the young women in the study were from rural communities and towns across Ghana. The participants reported similar characteristics about their parental education and work. Most of them reported that their parents had received only primary school education and worked in the informal sector as artisans, traders, or farmers. The fathers were usually small-scale farmers, and the mothers were mainly tabletop traders or self-employed. There were a few exceptions of fathers in the formal sector. Using parental education and employment status as an indicator of social status, it was possible to ascertain that most of these young women were from low-income families with a few from middle-income families.

The young women were interviewed with a life-history approach to ensure that they could reflect on their lived experiences from the time they considered studying STEM-TVET up to the time of the research. The research received ethical approval from the University of Cambridge, the Faculty of Education Ethics Board, and the Ghana Education Service at the national, regional and district levels. Approval at the school level included submitting informed consent forms and research information packs to the principals of the schools for consideration. The young women provided the final participation consent by signing informed consent forms. The ethical approaches empowered the young women to take up the role of co-researchers whose life stories and voices generated knowledge for transformative change. Thus, using a life history interviewing approach within IPA, young women were constructed as experiential experts (Smith, Flowers, and Larkin 2009). The narratives were analysed using the IPA to identify themes for discussion. Considering the COVID-19 restrictions and limitations on providing parental contact details, the principals of the schools acted as parents/guardians in the best interest of the young people, especially because the research process did not pose any potential harm to the participants (Alhassan 2013). Nakpodia (2012) explains that within the in loco parentis principle, the assumption is that parents delegate their parental authority to school authorities, and this makes school authorities responsible for students in their care at boarding schools in Ghana.

The interviews with 26 young women generated in-depth narratives about the lived experiences of young women. The narratives were audio recorded, of which 23 were conducted in English and three in Twi (one of the common local languages in Ghana). The IPA employed to analyse the data was the dual interpretation process proposed by Smith et al. (2009). The dual interpretation process involved ideographic and hermeneutic approaches (Smith, Flowers, and Larkin 2009). The analysis began with the ideographic approach, which involved individual analysis of the 26 young women’s narratives. The next step was the hermeneutic process, which involved extracting similar meanings and interpretations across those 26 narratives (Smith and Osborn 2008). Reading transcripts, initial noting, developing emergent themes, connecting themes, constructing superordinate themes, and writing up findings were the six main steps used as recommended by Smith and Osborn (2008). Smith and Osborn (2008, p. 76) do not precisely identify the analytical process as thematic analysis, but they acknowledge that the ‘processes in IPA were similar to thematic analysis.’ Therefore, some thematic analysis strategies identifying reoccurring themes are drawn from the work of Braun and Clarke (2006).

In addition to employing these six primary steps, other specific strategies like tables, annotations and identifiers facilitated the analytical process (Smith, Flowers, and Larkin 2009). The 26 audio recordings were transcribed using the Sonocent Audio Notetaker software’s speech-to-text function. The speech-to-text process to generate verbatim text of the narrative of each young woman produced over 1,000 pages of transcripts. After extensive readings and further familiarisation with the transcripts, the development of emergent themes began by systematically highlighting richer and illuminating data bits with specific colour codes and subsequently associating data bits with emerging themes (Smith, Flowers, and Larkin 2009). This reiterative process captured the essence of data bits either in abstraction or in alignment with the theoretical framework which identifies personal and social factors that inform education and career decisions. Thus, the analysis combined a deductive and inductive thematic process. The deductive process was the second-order level analysis where the factors outlined by the theory in use were extracted from the data bits as other emergent themes. Social stereotypes, social influence, the importance of the course, enjoyment of the course, aspirations, influential persons, agency, expectation of success, confidence, and self-belief, which are similar elements to such as the child’s belief, child’s interpretation of experiences, culture/social milieu, socialiser’s belief, child’s goal, and relative subjective task value appeared as themes from the data.

Findings and discussions

The analysis of the narratives showed that these young women navigated some subjective and social factors articulated by the expectancy-value theory achievement-related choice to choose a STEM-related TVET course. Apart from three unique cases, most of the participants had to navigate these subjective and social factors right from lower secondary school as they began to prepare for upper secondary education. These findings are presented in the order of events as the young women experienced them and the interpretations extracted from these experiences. The themes that emerged from the order of events are (1) concrete occupational goal; (2) exploring subject interests and abilities; (3) validations and invalidations; (4) reinforcers and underminers; and (5) finalising a STEM-TVET Choice.

Concrete occupational goal

Participants reported that by the beginning of Junior High School (JHS), which is the last three years of compulsory basic education they had developed some level of certainty about their long-term career goals. The general narratives showed that between class six (the last grade in upper primary school in Ghana) and the first year of JHS, participants had developed a sense of confidence in their decision to study STEM-related TVET. It appeared that participants’ orientation of their concrete occupational goals was divided into two directions. The first direction appeared to gravitate towards direct STEM-related TVET occupational goals. Thus, these young women intended to apply their STEM-related TVET knowledge and skills directly in traditional STEM careers such as mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer software engineering and computer hardware engineering. The second direction appeared to gravitate towards indirect STEM-related TVET occupational goals, and the intention was to apply STEM-related skills and knowledge in non-traditional STEM careers such as the military and police forces. Abla, a final-year mechanical engineering learner, reported the certainty of her occupational goal as:

In JHS 1, I made up my mind that I wanted to become an engineer. I was sure I wanted to continue school to study engineering at a technical institute. Although I knew engineering could be difficult, I was brave and certain of my decision to study STEM-related TVET courses that would benefit me in the future. (Abla)

Efa also explained that:

By JHS I knew what I wanted to become in future. I had to study a technical programme because I wanted to be a military woman. So, I decided that I would choose the electrical engineering class at a technical institute. (Efa)

The findings of the concrete occupational goal were consistent with existing studies on children’s future goal orientation and aligned with the child’s goal and general self-schemata component of the expectancy-value achievement-related choice (Eccles 2011b). Eccles and her colleagues discuss the child’s goal and general self-schemata as being related to the child’s possible and future self, short-term goals and long-term schools which are relevant to achieving their education and career goals. Research on children’s occupational orientation explains that children around ages 11–12 begin to think and plan towards distant future careers, making these goals more concrete between the ages of 11 and 12 (Nurmi 2005). The participants in the study were around the same ages by JHS. As Nurmi says:

At the age of 11, more future-oriented topics, such as studies, career, marriage, leaving the parental home, and the future of society, emerge in children’s thinking. Adolescents and young adults report future education, occupation, family, and leisure activities. children’s (Nurmi 2005, 46)

In Ghana, three possible reasons might explain why young women in this study had already formed concrete long-term STEM-TVET occupational goals by JHS. Firstly, at the beginning of JHS, learners become conscious of the inevitable need to choose a course and school for upper secondary education. Secondly, learners in JHS begin to learn pre-technical and vocational subjects, which exposes them to prospective upper-secondary STEM-related TVET courses. Thirdly, because JHS is the only link to upper secondary education in Ghana, it is anticipated that learners at this level consider a career and perform well in subjects related to those occupations (Adu-Gyamfi, Joselyn Donkoh, and Adinkrah Addo 2016; Akyeampong 2002; Gyaase and Adu-Gyamfi 2012). These three assumptions could provide an additional contextual explanation for concrete occupational by the first year of JHS as narrated by participants.

Exploring subject interests and abilities

The participants reported that because of their goal to become engineers, they explored their interests in pre-technical drawing, maths, and general science, which are subjects related to engineering at JHS. Thus, after considering their occupational goals, participants continued to plan and think about how to achieve their goals by identifying and exploring their interests and abilities in subjects that were valuable to their occupational goals. Aki reported:

In JHS 1, I identified my interest in pre-technical drawing, and I enjoyed it right away. I only got to learn in JHS 1 because the subject is only studied in JHS but not in primary school. I also enjoyed math, and I knew that my interest in these subjects was relevant to STEM (Aki)

Further, participants reported exploring their abilities in these identified interests. Although participants’ interest in these subjects were not always directly linked to high academic performance in those subjects, most young women report average performance. Thus, these participants reported a high degree of interest in general science, maths, and pre-technical drawing, but the high interest did not always correlate with high academic performance in these subjects. For instance, Amo narrated:

I liked science, but I was not good at it that much. As for maths, I was good but not all the time because it is unfortunate that I cannot calculate very well, and I get low grades during exams, but that did not change my interest. I still liked both maths and science. Meanwhile, I liked pre-technical skills because I did well. (Amo)

The finding on participants’ exploration of STEM-TVET subject interests and abilities was consistent with the expectations of success of the expectancy-value achievement-related choice. These young women expect to be prepared and successful in achieving their occupational aspirations if they study these courses based on their interests. According to the expectancy-value achievement-related choice, expected relevance and success are associated with the attainment value, intrinsic value, utility value or usefulness associated with subjects (Wigfield and Eccles 1994). The finding confirms other research findings that suggest that interest in STEM – related subjects mediate girls’ STEM occupational goals (Dierks et al. 2016; Lykkegaard and Ulriksen 2019; Kang, Keinonen, and Salonen 2019). For instance, evidence shows that general interest and expectations of success in STEM subjects among young women can be linked to a preference for technical sciences such as engineering and technology (Blickenstaff 2005; Karpa et al. 2015; M.-T. Wang, Eccles, and Kenny 2013). Other studies have found that girls’ interest in science was a stronger predictor of science education and career aspirations at the middle school stage (Kang, Keinonen, and Salonen 2019). Thus, even when girls’ performance in STEM subjects was weak, their deepened interest and exposure to STEM-TVET were better indicators for their transition into STEM-related TVET courses. Wang (2013, 1107) argues:

The effect of students’ exposure to math and science courses is even more significant than math achievement, which was once deemed the best predictor of students’ future STEM entrance. There is a need to boost high school student’s interest in pursuing STEM fields through an earlier introduction and exposure to math- and science-related courses.

At the crucial point where these young women begin to explore their interests and their abilities in STEM-TVET-related subjects in JHS, young women did not report access to any guidance and counselling, particularly formalised guidance, and counselling in school. The lack of or insufficient information about programmes, careers, schools, and courses seemed to explain why participants sought validation and invalidations from social actors in the network to guide their internal conversations about their choice as discussed in the next section. However, the evidence so far shows that guidance and counselling services could have played an instrumental role in supporting young women to navigate their interest and exploration period and create the enabling conditions to ascertain their achievement-related choices. The expectancy-value theory of achievement-related choice fails to capture guidance and counselling in the choice model.

Validations and invalidations

Participants reported that by the final year of JHS before writing the BECE, which is Ghana’s upper secondary school entrance exam, they sought validations for their STEM-TVET education and occupational choices. The participants appeared to consult their parents about their decision to study STEM-TVET courses to become engineers. It appeared that participants received either validation or invalidations from parents. It was common for fathers to validate participants’ STEM-TVET choices as opposed to mothers. For instance, Ayi said:

Once I told my father about my STEM-TVET interest and goal of becoming an engineer, he agreed for me to study my chosen STEM-related TVET course. I got support from my father in becoming an engineer but not my mother. She said girls do not study these courses. (Ayi)

Typically, the narratives of the girls revealed that most mothers suggested that their daughters should choose courses traditionally associated with females, such as fashion design and catering. Aki explained:

I did not tell my mother I chose this course. I knew she would not accept it. She got to know recently, and she did not support the idea. She said I should have studied fashion design. (Aki)

It is important to mention that only two mothers validated their daughters’ STEM-TVET decision. The decision of these mothers was reported as atypical of the other mothers. According to the young women who reported these three cases, they believed their mothers supported them for two reasons. The first reason was because the mothers understood the economic outcomes of STEM and the second reason was because the mothers were responsible for the associated educational costs of STEM-related TVET choices.

The finding on the role of parents in education and career decisions is consistent with the socialiser’s belief perspective of the Eccles model. According to this component of the expectancy-value achievement-related choice, how influential socialisers such as parents perceive education and career choices can influence the choice of a child. Research has found that social individuals, such as parents, influence the attitudes and preferences of young people (Archer 2014). Sjaastad (2012) describes these actors as significant persons. The significant persons in this research were mostly parents. The parents functioned as validators who supported these young women’s STEM-related TVET choices but also as invalidators, who did not support these young women’s STEM-related TVET choices. The finding on fathers being validators of STEM-related TVET choices rather than mothers supported similar research findings by other researchers who found that women in STEM described their fathers as more supportive of their decision to study STEM than their mothers (Mc Ewen 2013). However, the phenomenon that has been understudied but needs critical investigation in which parents are most influential in education and career decisions and under what social, cultural, economic, or political conditions are these influences defined and effective.

Reinforcers and Underminers

The participants reported that other social actors were relevant to their decisions. These social actors appeared to be divided into reinforcers and underminers. The participants’ narratives seemed to describe reinforcers as social actors such as other family members, teachers and community members who positively influenced their STEM-related TVET decisions. These reinforcers usually used words of encouragement and sometimes provided economic support to reinforce participants’ choices. Uncles and elder brothers seemed to be the most common economic reinforcers. In most cases, it appeared that uncles and brothers provided economic support when the participants’ parents were unavailable, particularly when the parents were divorced, or the father was deceased. Akos, who received financial support from her older brother, explained:

My senior brother supported my decision to study STEM-TVET. He made comparisons and said that senior high school is purely about theory and reading books. However, in a technical institute, I would have both theory and practice. The practice is more than the theory and I get the skills to work at the end of the day. He said I could do things with my hands and work for myself. Lastly, I can also be creative. (Akos)

Some participants reported that other social reinforcers acted as their role models. Role models were reported as having used their knowledge and experience in STEM-TVET education or occupations to provide positive reinforcement for the participants. The participants’ narratives showed that the primary role models were older siblings and community actors. For example, an electrical engineering learner, Ayi, explained:

My brother also went to a technical institute to study electrical engineering. I became interested in what he was doing. So, I followed him to work when he was going to work; I was there to watch what he was doing. I had a fair knowledge of electricals through observations before coming to school to study electrical engineering. (Ayi)

Yaa reported:

My father always tells me about a woman who works in my town’s manganese mining company. He described how they hold her in high esteem because she is an engineer and a great planner for their company. So, one day the company came to our school to encourage young girls not to be afraid of doing these engineering courses. That woman was there and advised us against girls’ fear of STEM programs with maths, science, and engineering backgrounds. So that also encouraged me to have a passion for engineering. (Yaa)

On the other hand, participants reported other socialisers did not support their choice. These were underminers that negatively influenced their STEM-related TVET decisions. In this case, underminers were usually older sisters and female friends who used negative reinforcements such as negative perceptions about women and girls in STEM and discouraging words to dissuade the participants from making STEM-related TVET choices. Like mothers, most senior sisters appeared to undermine participants’ decision to study STEM-related TVET courses. These sisters usually undermined the participants’ STEM-related TVET decisions with discouraging language that expressed their doubt about participants’ capabilities to study STEM-related TVET courses. Abla narrates a typical example:

When I was asking my mum about my decision to study engineering course, my senior sisters heard me. She then said, Abla, why do you think you can do an engineering course? She told me I could not study the course because it was challenging and a girl like me would find it challenging to study, so I should not choose an engineering course. (Abla)

Female friends and colleagues appeared to discourage participants’ STEM-TVET choices by expressing negative beliefs about young women’s participation in STEM-related TVET courses. Aba narrated:

You often hear people, especially my girlfriends saying that engineering courses are lower-grade courses to offer. My friends said that studying accounting and other courses could give me more opportunities and money than engineering. (Aba)

The finding on the role of other social actors was further consistent with the socialiser’s beliefs component of the expectancy-value achievement-related choice as influential in children’s education and career choices. Although the theory does not explicitly discuss role models and specific social actors, other research has found that some social individuals influence the attitudes and preferences of young people (Archer 2014). Like fathers and mothers, these individuals can also be described as significant persons (Sjaastad 2012). The finding contributes to the knowledge that the social world and network of young women can reinforce or undermine young women’s decision to study STEM-TVET even hence they have validations. The finding on the reinforcement of uncles and older brothers appeared to align broadly with the validations from fathers. In contrast, the undermining by senior sisters appeared to align with mothers’ invalidations. These older sisters’ preference for non-STEM-related TVET courses like fashion and catering instead of STEM-related TVET courses conformed to gender stereotypes that had the potential to constrain young women’s educational choices (Archer 2014; Eccles 1994).

The findings support the evidence that the gender of role models does not significantly change STEM stereotypes. Instead, the success of role models, the consistency of encounters, and the access to roles that embody STEM can significantly influence young women to make STEM-TVET choices (Barbara et al. 2016; Haynes, McCrone, and Wade 2013; McGuire et al. 2020; Musset et al. 2019; Sibbons and Seel 2000). This finding was consistent with research that shows that exposing learners to people from the world of work can challenge stereotypes and raise the aspirations of young women (Hutchinson 2018; Lee, Fatima, and John 2019). The primary argument is that exposure to people from the world of work positively impacts education and career decisions by breaking the circle of gender stereotypes and increasing social mobility for girls in STEM (Mann, Rehill, and Kashefpakdel 2018; Mann, Stanley, and Archer 2014).

Finalizing a STEM-TVET choice

Participants reported that when they eventually, chose their upper secondary schools and courses, they used the information from these social actors to analyse their decision. How these young women focused on the positive validations and reinforcements aligned with the child’s perception of the socialiser’s belief component of the expectancy-value achievement-related choice. That is, these young women considered the beliefs of these social actors but focused on the positive validations and reinforcers, instead of the negative perceptions. For example, Awo explained how she contemplated the information received from the various social actors:

I had this conversation with myself, that was like a monologue. I considered the information I had received about studying STEM-related TVET courses in technical institute … I concluded that offering a technical course would be the best. (Awo)

Participants reported that the ultimate step was to accept or reject the school and course offered by the Ghana Education Service after the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE). Twenty-three of these young women accepted a placement in a technical institute to study STEM-related TVET courses. Shia shared her experience of how she received her placement news:

I was unhappy about my grade and terrified of not receiving a placement. However, I was happy about my placement when I noticed I was accepted to study Building and Construction Technology. I accepted the offer and went to the school. (Shia)

However, as stated in the introduction of this paper, three of these young women appeared to be navigating a more unusual terrain. The first case was Aku, who reported she had to change her course after starting a non-STEM-TVET course at a technical institute. Sika wanted to study general arts but was offered catering at a technical institute. After studying catering, she noticed that she could not afford the expenses. Hence, she compared catering to other courses in the school and decided to choose STEM-related TVET courses with little or no expenses also because she found it interesting. After consultations with her teachers, she chose refrigeration and air-conditioning technology. Her decision was supported by the teachers, who assisted her in successfully changing her course. She narrated why she changed her course and the experience:

I decided not to continue the catering programme because my parents were poor. Sometimes, it was difficult to tell them about the expenses and ingredients I needed for catering practical lessons. So, I observed for a while and noticed that the engineering programs had low fees associated with the practical lessons. So, it is based on this observation that I changed my program from catering and hospitality to refrigeration and air conditioning technology. (Sika)

While Sika changed her course due to financial reasons and her new interest, without direct influence from her parents, Yawa, on the other hand, changed her course and school because of her mother’s advice about potential employment opportunities associated with STEM-related TVET courses. She narrated that her current school was her second placement because she started school in another secondary technical institute, but her mother was unhappy about the placement. So, she applied for a school transfer and finally received admission to study agricultural mechanisation technology. She narrated her experience:

I agreed with my mother to change my course to agriculture …. So, they transferred me to a new school to study agricultural mechanisation, where I can do practical lessons and add theory. I choose to stay here. (Yawa)

The third case was that of Ama. Unlike the two other cases above, she did not accept her first placement. Fortunately, the only available option was a STEM-related TVET course in a technical institute. Hence, she had no option but to accept the available offer:

I did a self-placement after rejecting my offer. The available course was database management systems for girls. I decided to study database management systems.

(Ama)

Although the flexibility to change educational choices is not widely discussed in the literature and the current theory, the finding was consistent with other evidence, which shows that young people may want to change their constrained choices when they can (Latina 2017). The relevance of horizontal and vertical permeability in education, especially in VET systems for young people, is noticed in the Swiss VET system (Latina 2017; Zirkle and Jeffery 2019). The primary argument is that complete information about educational routes, courses and evolving aspirations can empower young women to switch between educational pathways (Latina 2017). As seen in this research, the flexibility to allow that change was significant for young women who made a STEM-TVET decision later.

Moreover, the narratives of these three young women showed that the goals, general self-schemata and self-concepts of young women proposed Eccles (2011b) could change in the face of constraints and enablers. This is important because it shows that education and career decisions are not based on a particular formula. These components are not final nor fixed but highly amendable depending on the situation. This explains why it is essential for TVET systems to be flexible to meet the changing identity and general sense of direction among young women. These three atypical cases prove that education and career choices are not simplistic events with predetermined conditions enacted by individuals or societies. Instead, young women’s education and career decisions are subjects to foreseen and unforeseen circumstances that need an enabling environment to flourish.

Conclusion

Answers to the question ‘How do young women choose STEM-TVET courses in technical institutes in Ghana?’ have shown that the global aspiration to get more young women to study STEM is achievable if the enabling conditions are harnessed at the early stages of education. The study has shown that by age 10–12, most of these young women were actively considering and planning their education and career pathways. They had a concrete sense of their occupational and educational goals as their life projects (Archer 2014). Between the ages of 10 and 12, these young women were in their first year of JHS, and that stage coincided with the opportunity to explore their interests and aspirations as TVET courses were introduced in JHS in Ghana. Therefore, it is important for STEM and TVET education policies with the targets to increase access for young women to focus on factors at the middle school level to ensure that young women have enough resources to explore their STEM interests. Also, the other group of young women who did not make a STEM-related TVET choice at JHS have shown the need for opportunities for flexibility in the education system to ensure that girls who make their STEM-TVET choice later have the chance to pursue their aspirations. What is critical here is the flexibility and the exposure to other STEM-TVET options that were not studied in JHS.

The study has shown that there are complexities when choosing STEM-TVET courses. These complexities are noticed across the different layers of validations, invalidations, influencers, and underminers and finalising the decision to choose a STEM course in a technical institute is not unique to a particular young woman. Even though there were differences in the ways participants made their decisions and the time they decided to study STEM-TVET, especially for the three unique cases, the participants generally were able to make a non-confirming decision. These young women used their agency to informally explore available resources through discussions with social actors at home, school, and community. Fathers and other male social actors that provided validation and reinforcement of young women’s decision to study STEM-TVET through words of encouragement and providing relevant evidence to support these young women’s decisions show how men, in this case, are relevant allies to the global aspiration to increase girls and women in STEM-TVET. Although these young women faced the complexities of invalidations and underminers, the current research found that even if there are barriers and social constraints regarding STEM-related courses and occupations for girls and women, harnessing enabling conditions can empower them to navigate the constraints to pursue their STEM-TVET aspirations fathers’. The findings contribute to the discourse about how social structures and cultural fibres that determine girls’ and women’s education, and career decisions remain prominent in situations where there are inadequate formalised or professional sources of information on education and career pathways through guidance services inside and outside schools. Overall, the study confirmed that regardless of normative constraints that prevent young women from studying STEM-TVET courses, young women aspire to study these courses. These aspirations must be nurtured with positive validations, reinforcements, and relevant examples. Most importantly, when young women have STEM-TVET aspirations and interests, they develop a sense of agency that sustains their non-conformist choices.

One of the critical recommendations from the study is strengthening school-based guidance and counselling at the most critical stage of young women, which this research has shown to be age 10–11 (at the beginning of JHS). The emphasis is on the overwhelming need for quality, equitable, and accessible provision of guidance counselling in Ghana’s post-tertiary school system. As noticed throughout the findings presented, young women did not report accessing school-based guidance and counselling services. Other researchers discuss concerns about the inadequacies of Ghana’s guidance and counselling that affect young people’s education and career outcomes (Aryeetey, Doh, and Andoh 2013; Namale and Awabil 2018; Ocansey and Gyimah 2016). Amegah (2021) found a similar trend while investigating employer engagement in upper-secondary TVET Institutes in Ghana. The primary implication is for the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service to provide primary and secondary schools across Ghana with professional guidance and counselling officers with offices and resources situated in schools to ensure the quality and adequate provision of guidance and counselling services. A quality guidance and counselling system should engage parents, employers, and role models who provide mediate examples and encourage young women. The reason for this recommendation and the emphasis on professional counsellors is that there is evidence to suggest that adequate guidance and counselling services for young women in schools could create an enabling environment for them to exercise their agency to make non-conformist decisions that can improve their economic and employment outcomes. Through guidance and counselling services, young women could find adequate information to inform their aspirations to study STEM-related TVET courses, especially in a cultural world like Ghana, where social norms and culture predetermine gendered roles and careers.

School counsellors who can guide young women in deciding their education and occupations are in a unique position to contribute to improving the update of STEM-related TVET courses among young women. School counsellors can provide adequate and unbiased information about all pathways, courses and careers open to young women. Formal guidance and counselling officers should be integrated into the school or community-based guidance systems to support and encourage young women’s aspirations with relevant information about their school and career pathways. School counsellors have complementary and supplementary roles in supporting young women’s education and vocational choices. For instance, young women who show interest in STEM-TVET subjects in class but do not have knowledge about courses, careers, and outcomes of STEM-related TVET fields can be recommended by teachers to receive further guidance. Information about STEM-related fields and work-based experiences, such as industry visits and short stints to observe STEM-related TVET industries, can inspire young women to choose and maintain their STEM-related TVET pathways.

The analysis of young women’s narrative has drawn our attention to the reality that improving STEM-TVET is not a simple process; it will take a national and global call to begin the re-conceptualisation of STEM-TVET for young women to decide to choose education and career pathways in these fields. As proposed by Amegah (2022) the policies that seek to improve the participation of young women in STEM-TVET need to design interventions that value the aspirations of young women as central to achieving the new transformational role of VET. The proposal for policymakers to frame VET policies as central to the needs of girls and women is to allow a better understanding of the valued functioning of young women and ways to address this meaningful yet challenging social condition of the low participation of young women in STEM-TVET (Amegah 2022). The problem cannot be solved by removing barriers; this study uniquely provides an original contribution by highlighting enablers at the critical stage where young women in Ghana begin to make their education and career pathway choices. The change needed is attainable by removing the barriers and enhancing these identified enablers to fortify young women’s decision to study STEM-TVET.

Finally, the study makes two original theoretical implications. The first implication is that the study shows that one limitation of the expectancy-value achievement-related choice is the failure of the theory to recognise the need for formalised education and career guidance as a relevant component of the processes involved in making education and career decisions. While perceptions and beliefs of social actors remain relevant, the information provided by these actors, even when they are available, might not be adequate, based on the correct information and might be biased. Also, in cases where young women do not have sufficient social capital and networks or have uneducated social capital, the lack of professional education and career guidance becomes critical to the decisions they make, with long-term education and career consequences.

Also, the theory fails to explicitly discuss interest as one of the relevant components to make achievement-related decisions such as education and career decisions. Evidence from this research shows that instead of the direct relationship between academic performance and education and career decisions, high interest has a direct effect on young women’s STEM-TVET decisions. The implication of this finding, theoretically, is that while academic performance might be a predictor of success in education and career fields, interest is a strong predictor of young women deciding to study STEM-TVET in technical institutes in Ghana. Overall, the expectancy-value model of achievement-related choice was applied to the research and aided in understanding how and why these young women studied STEM-related TVET courses. Although the decision-making process is not linear or similar in the cases of all young women, all the 10 crucial domains of the expectancy-value model were relevant for young women’s STEM-related TVET choices (Archer 2014).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).