Does study counselling foster STEM intentions and reduce the STEM gender gap? Evidence from a randomized controlled trial

ABSTRACT

Low interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) among high school students in general and women in particular is a highly prevalent phenomenon in many industrialized countries. This study analyses whether study counselling – guiding students to select a major in higher education through self-exploration and fostering their confidence in completing higher education – increases their aspirations toward STEM. We pay particular attention to gender differences in this association. To identify the causal impact of the intervention, we employ a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) with pre–post design. Our results show that students participating in the counselling intervention more frequently develop aspirations toward life and environmental sciences subjects such as biology. Moreover, this effect is stronger for female students. In light of these results, we discuss the potential role of study counselling in reducing gender segregation in higher education.

KEYWORDS:

• Study counselling
• field experiment
• higher education
• choice of major
• STEM
• gender segregation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Ethics approval statement

All human subjects gave their informed consent to participate in the study, and adequate steps were taken to protect participants’ confidentiality. Participants were allowed to withdraw their consent at any time during or after the data collection. This research project was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences, University Cologne.

Additional information

Funding

This research received funding from the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (Federal Ministry of Education and Research) Funding Priority – “Academic success and dropout phenomena” (funding code (FKZ): 01PX16004; amount: 623,632.80 euros; term: 1 January 2017–30 June 2021).

Notes on contributors

Janina Beckmann

Janina Beckmann is a Post-Doc researcher at the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB). She works on social inequalities in education and the labour market, applying quantitative methods.

Lukas Fervers

Lukas Fervers is a postdoctoral researcher the University of Cologne and the Leibniz Centre for Lifelong Learning. His research focusses on policy evaluation, mostly in the field of labour market and education.