Navigating a male dominated domain: experiences of female STEM students in higher education in Ireland

ABSTRACT

It is well established that female participation in STEM diminishes at all stages of the education pipeline. National policy in Ireland is focussed on initiatives to address the STEM gender gap from early years to the end of secondary school (age 18/19) education. However, strategy in higher education is limited, with gender equality policy primarily aimed at staff and the broader institution. This qualitative research study, involving in-depth interviews with 21 female STEM students provides new insights into the experiences of female students who choose mathematics-intensive STEM fields (physics, computer science, engineering, and mathematics), where the gender gap is most pronounced. The aim of the study was to identify how a predominately male-dominated STEM course and environment influenced female students’ experiences. Prior to entering university, participants held high self-concept and interest in STEM. Using a situated expectancy-value theoretical lens to interpret the data, the research found that unconscious gender bias in university led female students to feel undervalued by their male peers. This negatively impacted their self-beliefs and interest, resulting in female students feeling more pressure to perform and less willing to participate in the learning environment. The implications for policy, practice, and future research are considered.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• STEM
• gender balance
• Perspectives of female students

Introduction

The under-representation of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) is a cause for global concern with socio-economic and social justice factors driving the need for change. Socio-economically, there is a need to address a global STEM skills shortage that is impeding economic growth and competitiveness (Department of Education and Skills 2017). STEM careers, particularly in the technology sector, command high salaries (World Economic Forum 2021), and a qualified workforce is needed to capitalise on ensuing economic advantage. From a societal viewpoint, STEM needs more diversity of talent and perspectives to develop innovative solutions to tackle issues of sustainability, environment, and global health concerns. From a social justice viewpoint, there is a need to ensure women have equal access to STEM education and equal opportunities to avail of lucrative STEM careers.

Statistics for higher education in Ireland show that 35% of STEM students are female (Higher Education Authority 2023). While there is a lack of definitive data describing global variations, UNESCO (2019) determined that 30% of the world’s science researchers are female, with the gender gap being lowest in Central Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean at 45% or less, and highest in South and West Asia where 19% of science researchers are female. These figures do not, however, distinguish between fields of study. In Ireland, the gender gap is most pronounced in mathematics-intensive STEM fields including physics, computer science, engineering, and mathematics. Statistics for Ireland show that female students account for 12% of electronics students, 19% of software students, 25% of physics students, and 32% of mathematics students (Higher Education Authority 2023). Similar gender gaps in physics, engineering, and computer science exist in Australia where less than 15% of students in these fields are female (Fisher, Brookes, and Thompson 2020); in the United Kingdom where 16% of the technology workforce and 10% of the engineering workforce are women (Ro, Fernandez, and Alcott 2022) while less than 20% of corresponding graduates in the United Statesare female (Cheryan et al. 2017). Throughout this paper, reference to the gender gap in STEM will be in specific relation to these mathematics-intensive fields of study; i.e. physics, computer science, engineering, and mathematics.

Female students disengage from STEM at key transition points in education. Irish Government STEM policy aims to encourage greater female participation in STEM by addressing societal and cultural barriers encountered by girls from early education to the end of secondary school (age 18) (Department of Education 2022). A review of gender equality in Irish Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) also focusses on the need for cultural and organisational change to address gender equality issues (Higher Education Authority 2016) but the perspectives of undergraduate and postgraduate students in the STEM pipeline are missing from the discourse. This research study aims to address this gap by exploring the lived experiences of female undergraduate and postgraduate students STEM students enrolled in two HEIs in the south of Ireland. To fully understand students’ experiences, it is firstly necessary to consider the barriers to STEM entry that female students overcame in choosing STEM.

The barriers to STEM entry are complex and nuanced, influenced by factors including gender stereotypes and societal and cultural norms. The attitudes and beliefs of those within girls’ sphere of influence (parental, peer, school, and wider society) (UNESCO 2017) shape female students’ self-concepts, sense of belonging and interest, engagement, motivation, and enjoyment of STEM (Cheryan et al. 2017). However,

existing research is often focussed on the reasons why women don’t choose STEM while the perspectives of those who do are less well understood, especially in a higher education context. This research aims to address the gap by exploring the experiences of female students in higher education who have chosen STEM. Expectancy value theory (Eccles 1994) was chosen as an appropriate framework as it conceptualises why female students choose STEM. It is the interaction of academic self-concepts (ASC) and subjective task values (STV) that determine STEM choice (Eccles 1994). Most recently, expectancy-value theory has been expanded to Situated Expectancy-Value Theory (SEVT) to capture how specific situations impact students’ ASC and TSV (Eccles and Wigfield 2020). There is a lack of research exploring the implications of this situational context and this study seeks to contribute to the body of knowledge by considering whether female STEM students’ experiences in university impact their ASC and TSV. This may provide a new lens through which to inform policy and practice aimed at addressing the STEM gender gap.

With this objective, the research presented here examines the following research question:

How do the challenges experienced by female STEM students in higher education in Ireland impact their academic self-concepts and subjective task values?

Gender gap in STEM university choices in Ireland

Entry to higher education in Ireland is operated by the Central Applications Office (CAO) which processes applications for college entry for all higher education institutes. Allocation of places is determined primarily by the results students achieve in the Leaving Certificate (LC) examination. This is a high-stakes terminal examination taken at the end of second-level education. LC results are translated into CAO points which are used to determine allocation of college places. Applicants who meet entry requirements are ranked according to the number of CAO points they achieve. Places are allocated, starting with highest-ranked candidates, until offers for the number of available places have been made. If a student does not achieve enough points for their first ranked course, they are offered a place on the next highest ranked course for which they achieve the required points.

In analysing the gender gap in STEM college choices of students in Ireland, Delaney and Devereux (2019) found that differences in achievement, as measured by LC results, had a negligible impact. Instead, Delaney and Devereux (2019) found that LC subject choices were the most significant determinant of whether students chose STEM. Research investigating higher education choices in Scotland and Germany similarly found second-level subject choice to be an important determinant of further study (Jacob et al. 2020).

Second-level education in Ireland is comprised of a three-year Junior Cycle (JC) (age 12-15) followed by a two-year Senior Cycle (SC) (age 16-18). After completion of JC, students have the option to take a one-year Transition Year (TY) programme before entering the final two-year SC. TY is a non-examination year aimed at providing students opportunities to mature; explore varied learning experiences and undertake work placements and community-based projects, prior to engaging with the academic rigours of the SC. Currently, 74% of students opt to take TY (Department of Education 2023a). Initiatives aimed at promoting STEM careers are frequently targeted at TY students. These include on-campus weeks where students can explore specific STEM fields of interest.

Students choose LC subjects at the start of SC or during TY. Higher-level mathematics is an entry requirement for the majority of mathematics-intensive STEM courses in higher education. There is a significant gender difference in attitudes towards mathematics with female students in Ireland reporting less confidence in their abilities and male students being more likely to enjoy mathematics (O'Rourke and Prendergast 2021). In choosing Leaving Certificate subjects, students are guided by beliefs regarding their abilities as well as their interest in particular fields (Delaney and Devereux 2019; Jacob et al. 2020). National policy recommendations for addressing the gender gap include initiatives to raise student confidence and sense of belonging in STEM as well as raising awareness of the diversity of STEM career opportunities among students, parents, and teachers (Department of Education 2022).

In order to optimise the effectiveness of such initiatives, it’s important to explore the factors that influence female students’ beliefs and interests and how these factors are at play during all stages of the educational journey to higher education.

Factors influencing female STEM students’ beliefs

Factors influencing female students’ STEM beliefs and interests can be considered in terms of an ecosystem with spheres of influence from family, school, and society (Department of Education 2020). Cheryan et al. (2017) describe how gender stereotypes of girls’ mathematical abilities and cultural stereotypes of people who belong in STEM impact females’ early STEM experiences; self-efficacy; abilities and performance and attitudes towards STEM. Cultural stereotypes of STEM professionals may reduce female students’ motivation to pursue STEM when the stereotypes are incongruent with students’ personal goals, values, and beliefs (Cheryan et al. 2017). Even when students themselves do not hold stereotypical views, their knowledge of the existence of stereotypes may be sufficient to result in lower performance, self-efficacy, and interest in STEM as a result of the impact of stereotype threat (Cheryan et al. 2017). Shapiro and Williams (2012) discuss stereotype threat as the anxiety caused when students believe their behaviours may be viewed as upholding negative stereotypes. This threat can impact performance through increased pressure to demonstrate high mathematical abilities thereby disproving such stereotypes. This pressure causes additional distracting concerns for female students in situations where they believe they are seen by others through a gender-stereotypical lens (Shapiro and Williams 2012). Students, who themselves have a positive attitude towards their mathematical abilities, can be impacted by stereotype threat if they perceive others as endorsing stereotypes. The pressure to disprove stereotypes through performing well can be more pronounced for high-performing female students as they already place high value on performance (Shapiro and Williams 2012). In addition to impacting performance, the expectation of encountering gender stereotypes may also lead to a decrease in students’ sense of belonging and result in lower interest in STEM (Cheryan et al. 2017). Male students and those with high STEM achievements are more likely to endorse gender-stereotypical beliefs (Blažev et al. 2017). To fully understand how these factors interact and influence female students, a theoretical framework through which they can be considered is needed.

Situated expectancy – value theoretical lens

SEVT describes how female students’ achievement-related choices in STEM are related to the combined influences of expectations for success and values (Eccles and Wigfield 2020). At its core, the theory explains that students are drawn to careers in which they expect to achieve and in which they have high value. Expectancy relates to expectations for success, answering the question ‘can I do it?’ Eccles and Wigfield (2020) describe expectancy in terms of Expectancies for Success (ES) informed by ASC. ASC develops over time and is shaped by students’ previous academic achievements, individual characteristics, personal and social identity, and how students perceive others’ beliefs and behaviours. Others’ beliefs and behaviours refer to student perception of the gender roles and stereotypes of people within their ecosystem, including parents, peers, teachers, and wider society (Eccles and Wigfield 2020). Value refers to STV describing interest, motivation and enjoyment and answers the question ‘do I want to do it?’ STV is categorised as comprising of four elements: intrinsic value (anticipated enjoyment of doing STEM), utility value (how useful STEM is to personal goals), attainment value (perceived personal identity-based importance of choosing STEM), and cost (the perceived personal cost of choosing STEM over other possible choices).

SEVT has been used as the theoretical framework for significant research on factors underpinning achievement-related choices in recent decades (Eccles and Wigfield 2020). Analysis of the various constructs of SEVT facilitates a deeper understanding of how female students’ experiences contribute to the STEM gender gap. Qualitative research, conducted by Banerjee et al. (2018) in the United States uses a SEVT theoretical lens to explore the influence of teachers on girls’ expectancies for success and subsequent values (interest) in STEM. Their research findings describe how teachers’ gender stereotyping of students’ mathematical abilities limits students’ expectations for success and subsequently lower student interest and STEM career aspirations. On the other hand, students whose teachers helped facilitate a better understanding of mathematical concepts had higher expectations for success, higher interest in STEM, and greater STEM aspirations. These findings demonstrate the need for students’ expectancies and values to be aligned in order for students to choose STEM careers.

In a study of Norwegian physics students Vetleseter Bøe and Henriksen (2013) explored how gender differences in values contribute to female underrepresentation. They found that female students place a higher cost value on physics than their male peers, suggesting that this can be explained by female students’ belief that the physics environment is a highly competitive one which discourages students with lower self-concept of their abilities. Through consideration of cost value, a fresh insight into the complex, nuanced factors behind the STEM gender gap can be gained.

Recent research conducted in Ireland used SEVT to explain why female students might opt out of choosing higher-level mathematics after JC (Treacy, O'Meara, and Prendergast 2023). This research found that despite prior achievements in advanced mathematics, students with a low expectancy of success also believed the cost value to be too high and these factors combined lead to a decision to discontinue the study of mathematics at a higher level in SC.

The situational context of SEVT is a recent expansion of the theory. Eccles and Wigfield (2020) emphasise that ‘momentarily ascendant ASCs and various task and personal values, goals, and identity fragments depend on the specific current situation in which both conscious and non-conscious choices are being made (p.2)’. This context is currently underexplored in research on the STEM gender gap. This research study aims to address this gap by exploring how specific situations experienced in college can impact female students’ ASV and TSV. This new understanding can help inform policy and practice aimed at enhancing female STEM students’ university experiences.

Research design and approach

Purpose and approach

A qualitative methodology from an interpretive genre (Cohen, Manion, and Morrison 2018) was selected as the means of examining the research question posed in this study. SEVT posits that the factors influencing female STEM students ASC and TSC are shaped by individual factors at home, at school, and in wider society and are formed and experienced differently for all individuals. Thus, a qualitative methodology and interpretive genre was the appropriate approach in this study aiming to gain a deeper understanding of female STEM students’ ASC and TSV and how these are impacted by students’ perspective of their university experiences. The research question was examined through in-depth interviews with 21 female students currently studying STEM at the undergraduate or postgraduate level. STEM students in two different universities in the south of Ireland were invited to participate. Ethical approval for the selection of participants, research design, and storage of data via anonymised transcript was obtained from UCC’s Social Research Ethics Committee (2021-115) prior to any interviews being conducted.

Participant selection

A volunteer sampling (Cohen, Manion, and Morrison 2018) approach was used for participant selection. The criteria for inclusion were that the participants were female students studying mathematics-intensive STEM courses and were, at least, in the third year of undergraduate study or were postgraduate students. Academic staff in relevant departments in two universities in the south of Ireland were contacted by email, requesting their assistance in participant recruitment by disseminating information regarding the study to relevant students. The email included a brief description of the rationale for the study, details of how the research would be conducted, and information on data collection and storage. Interested students were asked to contact the researcher for further information.

Prior to the interview, participants were asked to provide written consent to participate and to complete a preliminary survey during which data on the field of study, secondary school, and LC subjects were collated. This data is shown in the interviewee profile in Table 1 with the participants being identified by pseudonyms. The interviewees programmes of study include: S (physics or computer science); E(engineering) or M(mathematics). Where participants are studying e.g. physics and mathematics, they are listed in both the S(science) and M (mathematics) categories shown in Table 1. Participants were registered with two universities in the south of Ireland, 15 participants were registered with one university and six with the other.

Table 1. Research participant profile.

Student Pseudonym	STEM Field of Study	Degree or year of undergraduate study	Completed TY?	STEM Programmes in TY?	LC Secondary School Type	Higher Level LC subjects
Alex	S	PhD	No	n/a	Mixed	Subjects for Secondary School: Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geography, Languages
Alice	S	4th	Yes	Exhibition	Mixed	Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Irish, English, French, Home Economics
Anne	SE	PhD	No	n/a	Mixed (DEIS)	Maths, Biology, English, French, German, Music, Geography
Caoimhe	E	3rd	Yes	Event promoting STEM to females	Mixed	Maths, Chemistry, Agicultural Science, Irish, English, German, Accounting
Caroline	M	4th	No	n/a	Mixed	Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Applied Maths, DCG, Irish, English, French
Clodagh	E	4th	Yes	Campus week	Girls	Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Applied Maths, Irish, English, French, Art
Emily	E	4th	Yes	Campus week for female students	Mixed	Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Applied Maths, English, Home Economics
Jade	M	4th	No	n/a	Mixed	Maths, Chemistry, Biology, Applied Maths, Irish, English, Spanish, Business
Jennifer	E	4th	Yes	Campus week	Mixed (fee paying)	Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Applied Maths, English, Accounting, Home Economics
Kathryn	E	MEng	Yes	Campus Week	Girls	Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Irish, English, German, Accounting
Leah	E	4th	Yes	n/a	Mixed	Maths, Physics, Applied Maths, Irish, English, French, History, Geography
Lola	S	4th	Yes	Campus week for female students	Mixed	Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Irish, English, French, Art
Madeline	S	3rd	Yes	Company visit	Mixed	Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, English, Art
Molly	E	4th	Yes	Campus week for female students	Girls	Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Irish, English, German, Home Economics
Natalie	SM	3rd	Yes	Campus week for female students	Mixed (DEIS)	Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Applied Maths, Irish, English, French, Geography
Niamh	SM	4th	Yes	Campus week for female students	Mixed	Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Irish, English, German, Accounting
Rose	S	PhD	Yes	Campus week	Girls	Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Irish, English, Spanish
Sonia	SM	3rd	Yes	No	Mixed (fee paying)	Maths, Physics, Applied maths, Engineering, Irish, English, French
Sophie	E	4th	Yes	Event promoting STEM to females	Mixed (Fee paying)	Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Applied Maths, Irish, English, German
Úna	S	3rd	Yes	Campus week	Mixed (DEIS)	Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Irish, English, Spanish
Zoe	E	MEng	Yes	No	Mixed	Maths, Physics, DCG, Irish, English, German, Geography

Research instrument

One-to-one, semi-structured, interviews were selected as the research instrument to address the research question posed in this study. A semi-structured format means that while some questions were prepared in advance, the direction of the interview and further probing could be tailored to each participants’ responses (Cohen, Manion, and Morrison 2018). This is in keeping with SEVT (Eccles and Wigfield 2020) which conceptualises that ASV and TSV are specific to the individual.

The objective was not to capture data on the prevalence of the STEM gender gap or to attempt to quantify the underlying causes, rather it was to gain a deeper understanding of the perspectives of students who had most recently overcome barriers to STEM entry by choosing STEM fields of study in higher education. The intention was to probe the lived experiences of these particular students with the aim of uncovering how these experiences might inform the development of policy and practice for effective interventions addressing the gender gap.

The researcher outlined the rationale for the study and the interview format at the start of the interviews. The interview questions were framed using theories, identified from the literature, explaining the factors that determine STEM choices. These were: confidence in STEM abilities; interest and enjoyment of STEM; STEM identity and the impact of spheres of influence on career choice (Cheryan et al. 2017; Eccles and Wigfield 2020; UNESCO 2017). Thus, students were asked to assess their academic abilities; to describe the development of their interests and enjoyment of STEM over time; and to discuss how experiences at home, in school, with peers, and in wider society contributed to their choosing to study STEM in higher education. The question structure was broadly chronological; starting with school experiences, moving to higher education choices; university experiences, and finally future career aspirations and goals. In this way, the structure facilitated any changes in students’ self-concepts and values over time to be linked to specific experiences and situations.

The research participants in this study were viewed as co-constructors of knowledge (Cohen, Manion, and Morrison 2018). Thus, after their responses to the semi-structured questions had been obtained, participants were given an overview of theories explaining the existence of the STEM gender gap and asked to give their interpretation of whether they felt their experiences might be aligned with the theoretical constructs.

The Covid-19 pandemic impacted the educational experiences of all students globally and this was reflected in the responses of some of the participants in this study as the majority of interviews were conducted between January and May 2022. To minimise the extent to which college experiences might have been impacted by the pandemic, it was decided to interview students who were in the third year of undergraduate study or higher as this cohort would have completed, at least, one full semester of college before pandemic-related restrictions were introduced. Additionally, those students who completed the LC examination would have done so in 2019 or earlier before the examination format was altered to take account of pandemic-related factors.

The interviews were conducted and recorded online using Microsoft Teams. This had the advantage of interviews being conducted in a natural and comfortable environment for participants, all of whom were familiar with the use of online tools for communication due to the legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic. Two pilot interviews were conducted in October 2021 with the objective of testing the interview design and process. The format used for the pilot interviews was the same as that of the full-scale study. The interviews were designed to be up to one hour in duration and feedback from the pilot process indicated that the intended format was achievable during this timeframe. Following the pilot process, the remaining 19 interviews were conducted between January and May 2022.

Data analysis

Following interviews, a verbatim transcript of participants’ responses was created. The transcript also noted participants’ non-verbal communications, such as tone of voice, hand gestures, facial expressions, and pauses during the interview. The transcripts were then anonymised using pseudonyms for each participant and the original video recordings were deleted.

Thematic analysis is an analysis technique for ‘exploring, interpreting and reporting relevant patterns of meanings within a dataset’ (Braun and Clarke 2022, 224). It is theoretically flexible so can be applied to a broad range of research studies and is particularly suited for analysing participants’ experiences and the factors that influence perspectives, such as the focus of this research study. Theoretical flexibility means that there are different possibilities for how the practice of thematic analysis is undertaken with regard to the orientation to data, focus of meanings, qualitative framework, and research theoretical framework (Braun and Clarke 2022).

In this study, a deductive orientation to data (Braun and Clarke 2022, 10) was applied to address the research question with SEVT providing the lens through which themes were generated and interpreted.. The focus of meanings was both semantic and latent, with a semantic focus capturing what the participants actually said about their experiences and a latent focus exploring the meanings behind these stories through SEVT constructs. An experiential qualitative framework explored the individual perspectives of the research participants regarding their university experiences while a constructivist research framework (Braun and Clarke 2022, 10) sought to interrogate and unpack, how ASV and TSC are developed through experiences of factors at play within the STEM ecosystem (family, teachers, peers, and wider society) might have impacted individual student’ experiences.

Thematic analysis recognises the need to acknowledge and accept researcher subjective throughout the analysis process (Braun and Clarke 2022). To this research study, the lead researcher brings the experiences of having been a female undergraduate and postgraduate student of engineering. However, there is considerable researcher distance as these experiences were from a previous generation to current students, in a time when the socio-cultural landscape for women in Ireland was entirely different. This distance was maintained through the researcher not discussing personal experiences with the participants.

There are six phases in the process of thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2022). These are: dataset familiarisation; data coding; initial theme generation; theme development and review; theme refining, defining and naming, and write-up. Dataset familiarisation involved repeated and active reading of the data during the transcription phase. Coding the data involved extracting smaller chunks of meaning from individual transcripts and grouping these into initial themes. The theme development, review, and refining phases involved several iterations of regrouping and renaming themes until the researcher felt the final themes and sub-themes uniquely captured students’ experiences. The final themes were categorised to reflect specific situational challenges encountered by the research participants. Theme labels were chosen to reflect these situational challenges. Students’ outlook on entry to higher education was also selected as a theme to enable changes in students’ self-concept and values to be analysed. This resulted in four themes being generated and these are shown in Table 2. There were 17 sub-themes amalgamated to form the four main themes. SEVT was then used to interpret the impact of each situational challenge and this is discussed in the next section.

Table 2. Thematic map of research data.

Final themes	Sub themes
Outlook on entry to higher education	Enthusiastic. Interested. Confident. Supported. Strong STEM identity.
Peer Attitudes	Feeling undermined. Unheard. Underestimated. Pressure to perform Lack of awareness by peers of gender issues.
Learning environment	Lack of female lecturers. Fear of reinforcing stereotypes. Perceptions of lecturer’ attitudes. Feeling othered.
Filling quotas	Unintended consequences of women only scholarships. Perceptions of placement allocations. Feeling singled out for special treatment.

Findings

Outlook on entry to higher education

To fully appreciate how challenges faced in university impacted participants’ self-concepts and values, it’s firstly necessary to understand their perspectives prior to entering higher education.

All participants had high intrinsic STV upon leaving school and spoke of ‘really enjoying’ and ‘loving’ studying mathematics and physics for LC. It’s notable that 18/21 participants (Table 1) in this study had studied higher-level physics for LC. Participants’ STEM STV was enhanced through parental and peer support for STEM choice; e.g. Úna spoke of how her parents said her career choice ‘fits you, kind of sounds like you, while Madeline said her friends ‘were very supportive and kind of went, yeah, that’s obvious’ when she told them of her STEM choice. These examples demonstrated how participants’ sense of identity with STEM was reinforced through parental and peer agreement that their STEM choices were compatible with participants’ identities, thereby increasing participants’ attainment value. Positive experiences in school environments where there were ‘no assumptions of any sort of discrepancies between the genders (Lola)’ further enhanced participants’ STEM attainment value. All participants had performed well in the LC Examination and achieving the high grades necessary to meet entry requirements for their chosen course contributed to their having high ASC.

During interviews, participants were asked about their perceptions of the STEM gender gap before entering university and whether they felt gender would impact their studies. All were aware of the gender gap and 17 of the participants reported being unconcerned that gender would influence college experience. Interviewees (10/21) who had participated in Transition Year Campus weeks spoke of finding a supportive and welcoming environment in these programmes. This was especially the case for participants (5/21) who participated in Campus weeks aimed at promoting STEM to female students; e.g. Lola described the iWish (n.d.) campus week as powerful and impactful and one that ‘made me feel very included’.

Positive prior experiences, combined with high STV and ASC, resulted in participants feeling excited and enthusiastic about studying STEM in higher education. Participants described how they felt they were contributing to rebalancing the STEM gender gap and how they were ‘delighted if I could make a ripple’ (Jennifer) or ‘it’s nice to break the norm’ (Úna). In this way, they felt that they might help inspire future generations of girls to also choose STEM.

Participants were asked if they experienced any challenges during university that they felt were related to their gender. Of the 21 interviewees, five reported that they had not experienced any gender-related challenges and the remaining 16 described situations where they perceived that gender negatively impacted their experiences. The research findings present an account of the challenges experienced and describe how these impacted participant ASC and TSV.

Peer attitudes

Participants valued a collaborative learning environment and spoke of the importance of teamwork. Group assignments and working as groups in laboratory sessions formed a significant element of their studies. Generally, students were assigned to specific groups so they did not get to choose which students with whom they would work. Zoe described her experience of working in a group where she was the only female. The following is her experience of the situation:

I just … I couldn’t be taken seriously on anything I was saying. If I was suggesting something, I had to pull loads of sources to prove that I actually knew what I was doing while everyone else was just being taken at their word

Zoe described her frustration at constantly having to prove herself. She felt she had to provide hard evidence to support any of her suggestions and was constantly ‘second guessing’ herself. She spent considerably more time on the assignment than others in her group as she was making sure she checked lecture notes and researched her input thoroughly before she could bring it to the group. In this case, Zoe needed to perform at a higher level than male group members in order for her contribution to be considered of merit. Thus, Zoe’s experience of working in a female minority group significantly impacted the cost component of her STV for the assignment.

In addition to needing to perform at a higher level than their male peers, some participants described situations where their input was not heard. Rose described a situation where a classmate was asking for help:

if there’s a question about an assignment and a guy asked about it to the class, I’ll say something and he won’t hear me. Then my male friend will say the exact same answer or something similar about 10 min later and the guy will say Oh, thanks for telling me that!

Rose’s experience of being unheard, even when she offered a valid response to a question, negatively impacted her ES in that particular assignment. The experiences described by Zoe and Rose highlight two significant challenges faced by female STEM students. In Zoe’s case, when peers were required to consider her opinion in a group situation, her input was constantly questioned. In Rose’s example, when classmates were asking for help from the entire class, the opinions of female students remained unheard, even when they offered the same advice as male students. Both these examples attest to the persistence of gender stereotypical beliefs within the peer culture, resulting in female students questioning their ES and STV in specific situations.

Stereotypical attitudes regarding girls’ mathematical abilities can exist from an early age and shape the formation of female students’ ASC. Kathryn recounted this attitude when she said; ‘I think it’s just ingrained that like, you’re not good at maths. I don’t know where it comes from, but it just seems from a young age that girls are like, no I can’t do it’. In describing stereotypical beliefs as ‘ingrained … from a young age’, Kathryn conveyed the extent to which these stereotypical beliefs can pervade all stages of female students’ education, negatively impacting the development of ASC and TSV.

The expectation of encountering gender stereotypes can be sufficient to impact students’ ES as well as the cost they associate with particular tasks. Jade’s description of the pressure on female students to outperform their male peers demonstrated how she experienced this in university. She spoke of how if a male student made a mistake ‘he makes a mistake’, whereas ‘if a girl makes a mistake, she’s bad at maths’. Jade spoke of how female students would be afraid to ‘mess up in front of the lads ‘cause their whole gender is going to be held accountable’. Jade expanded her perspective on being perceived to conform to stereotypes further when she said:

Society says that women shouldn’t be in STEM through different ways and girls internalise this and now feel that they have to reach an exceptionally high level of competence in STEM to actually be allowed progress in it as opposed to lads -they will take any level of competence and just run with it

In Jade’s case, her STEM STV included a high cost associated with her belief that any ‘mistake’ she might make would be perceived by her peers as confirming gender stereotypes about females’ mathematical abilities.

It is important to recognise that the existence of stereotypical attitudes in the examples cited here appears to be the result of an unconscious bias; ‘I don’t think it was so marked on purpose’ (Rose). The effects of negative peer attitudes occurred mainly in early undergraduate years and generally improved when ‘they got to know us more as individuals … it helps a little bit’ (Zoe). Most students felt their male colleagues were unaware of the fact that female students were being treated differently and were ‘oblivious’ (Sonia) to issues around the gender gap. Participants spoke of how it was only when they had conversations on the STEM gender gap that male students became aware of the issues involved. The fact that male peers were unaware they were treating their female classmates differently suggests an unconscious bias on their part, through which gender stereotypical attitudes were reproduced.

Learning environment

When asked if they felt treated differently by lecturers, participants were more hesitant in responding compared to experiences of gender stereotyping from their peers. However, five (5/21) participants described experiences where they felt their gender might have impacted lecturers’ attitudes towards them. Sophie reported that one of her lecturers would ‘answer a boys’ question before a girls’ question and he would not give as much time to girls as he would to the boys’. Sophie felt that this situation was not the result of any conscious bias from her lecturer and was hesitant as to how she could address it. Kathryn did not feel that her lecturers treated female students differently but spoke of how the university environment was male-dominated and suggested that her lecturers were just ‘more used to dealing with lads’.

A male-dominated environment and, specifically, a lack of female lecturers was mentioned by eight (8/21) of the participants. Alice reported that ‘I couldn’t picture myself lecturing quantum mechanics because I only ever had male lecturers and so I definitely would think that would have effect on me’. In Alice’s case, her STEM ASC and attainment STV were negatively impacted by the lack of female role models, resulting in her feeling less sense of identity with STEM.

Thus, while participants felt the gender bias they experienced might be the result of unconscious bias in a male-dominated environment, the prevailing culture could serve to undermine students’ sense of identity with STEM and negatively impact their ASC.

For example, when asked about her experiences in university, Lola said:

I didn’t ask questions in lectures. That’s another thing – there’s definitely an element of personal confidence, there was possibly a gender bias as well because, I don’t want to assume, but like I was so scared to be wrong. I was so scared to ask a stupid question (Lola)

Lola explained how her confidence had ‘teetered off’ in university although she was still achieving first-class honours grades throughout her undergraduate years. Lola had high ASC and TSV upon entering college but this example highlights how the gender bias Lola felt in university brought about a situational change in her ASC. It also demonstrates how this decreased ASC impacted Lola’s participation in class, resulting in her feeling that she couldn’t ask questions for fear of being perceived as ‘stupid’.

Filling quotas

The data suggest that initiatives aimed at increasing female participation in STEM can sometimes have unintended negative consequences. Rose described a situation where one of her lecturers was promoting a placement opportunity and informed the class that half of the available places would be allocated to female students. The implication, according to Rose, was that ‘anyone who applied that was a female would get a position’. Rose was offered a placement but felt she merited the offer based on her academic performance and not on her gender. She described how this situation, alongside her high academic performance, created an environment of tension with her male classmates being jealous of her and making ‘comments that implied they thought they were better than me – almost as if they were saying I’m smarter than you so I should have done better than you’. Alice told of a similar story in relation to her receiving a women-only STEM scholarship and spoke of how her male peers resented such scholarships as they ‘don’t get a chance to get something like that’.

While such initiatives are intended to benefit female STEM students, they may instead have the opposite effect. When female students are already in a minority and feel undermined by male peers, such initiatives may serve to further emphasise their ‘otherness’ and contribute to creating an even greater gender divide within classes. Sonia described how one of her male classmates was ‘genuinely baffled’ at the existence of women-only scholarships. She told of how he said ‘it’s a coin toss at birth, but you get money and you get paid to go to college’. Setting female students apart through such initiatives may suggest that female students do not have the ability to compete on an equal merit-based footing with their male peers unless they are given special treatment. This suggestion is demonstrated through Jennifer’s feelings upon being offered a highly coveted placement opportunity:

I was very hesitant and sad at the time. I thought that I just got it ‘cause they had to fill like a quota or something. You know, I just wasn’t believing in myself now, like … I later found that I was one of the highest (academic results) in the class.

Before she started college, Jennifer did not envisage any negative consequences of her choosing engineering. Although she had considered the gender gap, she was excited to be studying engineering and felt she was making a difference by being a female engineer. Jennifer presented a confident and positive attitude during the interview while her feelings of sadness and ‘not believing in myself now’ on receiving the placement demonstrate how her ASC was negatively impacted by the perception that she was offered the placement on the basis of her gender rather than her academic achievements.

In speaking of such STEM initiatives, Leah said:

The intentions are so good, but they’re just missing the point … I want to be given the same opportunities as anyone else, like I want to earn it – that’s what I get the personal satisfaction from, knowing that I actually deserve what I’m getting as opposed to being given it because I’m a woman … . I’m just as capable as anyone else.

Leah’s intrinsic value in STEM was shaped by the personal satisfaction she received from earning her achievements. This extract from Leah’s interview spotlights where the focal point of initiatives aimed at addressing the STEM gender gap needs to lie. It is the environment and prevailing culture that needs to change to enable female STEM students to demonstrate their abilities once they are competing on an equal basis with their peers.

Discussion: Implications for policy and practice in addressing challenges faced by female STEM students in higher education

The review of gender equality in Irish HEIs (Higher Education Authority 2016) recognises that gender equality will not be achieved by a ‘fix the women’ (p. 9) approach but rather by changing the prevailing culture within HEI organisations themselves. While the Irish Government policy addressing the STEM gender gap is focussed on initiatives from early education to secondary school (Department of Education 2022), gender equality policy in higher education is mainly focussed on staff initiatives (Higher Education Authority 2022). However, gender balance in HEI’s can only be fully achieved by also considering the challenges experienced by undergraduate and postgraduate students in the higher education pipeline. It is in this context that the findings of this research are discussed.

International research conducted in the US (Cheryan et al. 2017) and Australia (Fisher, Thompson and Brookes 2020) found that lower self-efficacy in female students is one of the primary contributors to STEM gender gap in higher education. SEVT (Eccles and Wigfield 2020) provided a fresh insight into how specific situations in the predominately male culture in higher education caused female STEM students to feel lower self-efficacy and what impact this had on their university experience.

This research study found students experienced gender bias while working in group situations in which they were in a minority. Students felt their contributions were undervalued and, as a result, they felt increased pressure to perform and demonstrate their abilities to a higher level than their male peers. In these situations, students’ expectancies for success were diminished and their STV was shaped by the high cost they associated with group work.

This has implications for teaching and learning in terms of how module assignments are structured More careful consideration of how classroom groups are formed may help mitigate this. For example, research conducted in the US found that working in female-majority groups positively impacts female engineering students’ situational beliefs, resulting in students being more positively challenged and more vocal while participating in group work (Dasgupta, McManus Scircle, and Hunsinger 2015). Including a balance of individual and group assignments when designing module assessment structures may also help female students better demonstrate their abilities without the additional pressures of group situations.

The threat of encountering gender bias was also found to impact the manner in which students participated in the classroom with participants being reluctant to ask questions for fear of confirming gender stereotypes. In measures designed to counteract stereotypical attitudes in computer science and physics departments in universities in the US, Hill, Corbett, and Rose (2010) found that departmental support for social activities encouraging greater socialisation, as well as spaces where students could meet informally outside class, encouraged a broader culture within departments and were found to nurture a more supportive environment. In this regard, measure to encourage greater socialisation among students, particularly in early undergraduate education, might prove beneficial.

Participants in this research study felt that the negative attitudes of peers were not intentional but rather the result of unconscious bias. The review of gender equality in Irish HEIs, sets out a national requirement that appropriate unconscious bias training be provided for all staff in order to effect cultural change on gender equality (Higher Education Authority 2022). Extending this requirement to also include training for all students may prove beneficial in raising awareness amongst male students of the existence of their unconscious bias and of how their female peers have negative experiences during group work.

The research presented in this paper provides new insight into the unintended consequences of STEM interventions. When participants felt that they were presented with opportunities such as career placements because of their gender, it caused students to question their abilities and undermined confidence. Even if opportunities are entirely merit based, any underlying assumption that female students may be filling a gender quota leads to decreased ASC and TSV. Cowgill et al. (2021) found that interventions which overly emphasise the gender gap can have the negative consequence of reinforcing messages that women do not belong in STEM. Pietri et al. (2019) similarly found that while creating awareness of gender bias is a crucial first step in addressing the problem, it can contribute to women feeling a lack of belonging in STEM. Fisher, Brookes, and Thompson (2022) found that male students can feel discriminated against by diversity initiatives and this can result in their feeling frustrated and hostile to such initiatives. These factors need to be taken into account when considering initiative aimed at promoting STEM to women. The primary emphasis of any such initiatives should be on the students’ achievement rather than their gender. Placement providers should provide students with the opportunity to share their achievement and skills to mitigate against perceptions that placement awarding might be gender based (Smith and Gayles 2018).

This research study found that the participants entered college with high ASC and TSV. It was notable that 18/21 participants had studied physics for Leaving Certificate (LC) as nationally less than 8% of female students choose LC physics (State Examinations Commission n.d.). This highlights the need for policy and practice to focus initiatives promoting STEM at the key transition stage from JC to SC when subject choices are being made. It is encouraging that, despite the challenges encountered in higher education, participants would continue to choose the same, or a similar mathematics-intensive STEM, course if starting college again. Further research is needed to investigate whether this might be the result of strong and stable ASC and TSV developed over time mitigating against more situationally specific challenges experienced in college. Including constructs that capture the development of resilience within the SEVT model may also be worthy of further research. However, the findings presented should also be viewed in the context of the limitations of this study. As all participants were continuing in their field of study, the perspectives of students who chose STEM and subsequently left was missing from the narrative. This perspective is crucial in the design and implementation of initiatives aimed at addressing challenges experienced during university. There is a gap in research exploring the experiences of students who do leave and further research in this area is essential.

Conclusions

This research study focussed on the experiences of female undergraduate and postgraduate students who choose to study mathematics-intensive STEM in higher education in Ireland. While these students had already overcome barriers to entry in choosing STEM, the factors contributing to those barriers continued to exist in the university environment and were found to negatively impact female STEM students’ experiences in university. Irish government policy aimed at addressing the STEM gender gap considers measures to be implemented from early education through to the end of secondary school (Department of Education 2022). Gender equality initiatives in higher education are primarily aimed at HEI staff and the broader institution (Higher Education Authority 2016). Thus, the perspectives of current female STEM students in higher education are missing from the discourse. This research addressed a gap in existing knowledge by exploring how gender-related challenges were experienced by female undergraduate and postgraduate female STEM students. Unconscious gender bias was found to negatively impact student experiences. Using a novel SEVT lens to investigate the impact of unconscious bias enabled fresh insight into the understanding of how female STEM students experience challenges in university and how these impact STEM self-concepts and interests. Implications for policy and practice in higher education were discussed.

Further research into how the predominantly male-dominated culture could be considered in the design of module assessment formats would prove useful. Faculty support for initiatives aimed at providing increased opportunities for social activities amongst new undergraduates may also be of benefit. The introduction of implicit bias training for all students, as well as staff, may be effective in helping to address the challenges faced by students. Further research into how such training should be designed and delivered would be worthwhile.

Initiatives aimed at encouraging greater female participation in STEM, such as transition year programmes, were highly regarded by participants in this research study with students reporting higher STEM self-concept and interest after participating in such programmes. However, initiatives such as female only-scholarships were less well regarded by participants who felt that such initiatives instead emphasised female students’ underrepresentation in STEM and created tension with male peers. While measures to support female student engagement with STEM are undoubtedly needed, it is important that any initiatives emphasise the achievements and skills of female STEM students rather than just their gender.

The students who participated in this study entered university life with high self-concept and interest in STEM. They self-selected to participate in this research and their experiences may not be representative of all female STEM students. Further research into the experiences of those who choose to study STEM in higher education but leave before graduation would prove valuable in identifying priority areas for policy and practice.

At a national, and international, level more information on the challenges faced by females in STEM is needed. It is only through a deeper understanding of the lived experiences of female students that gender equality can be achieved.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Orla Slattery

Orla Slattery is a PhD student with the School of Education, University College Cork and is Graduate Studies Coordinator for the Tyndall National Institute, UCC. Her research is exploring gender balance in mathematics intensive STEM through the perspectives of female students in higher education.

Mark Prendergast

Mark Prendergast is a Senior Lecturer in Education in the School of Education at University College Cork. His teaching and research interests include mathematics education, teacher education, and adult numeracy.

Máire Ní Riordáin

Máire Ní Ríordáin is a Senior Lecturer in Education at University College Cork. She primarily teaches in the Professional Master of Education and M.Ed. programmes, particularly in the areas of mathematics education, educational research and methods, and school placement. Her current research interests are in bilingualism (Irish and English) and influence on cognitive mathematical processing, teacher education, practitioner research, and STEM education.