The Effects of a Female Role Model on Academic Performance and Persistence of Women in STEM Courses
Year: 2016
Type: article
Abstract: Women are more likely to leave science, technology, engineering, and mathematics compared to men, in part because they lack similar role models such as peers, teaching assistants, and instructors. We examined the effect of a brief, scalable online intervention that consisted of a letter from a female role model who normalized concerns about belonging, presented time spent on academics as an investment, and exemplified overcoming challenges on academic performance and persistence. The intervention was implemented in introductory psychology (Study 1, N = 258) and chemistry (Study 2, N = 68) courses. Relative to the control group, the intervention group had higher grades and lower failing and withdrawal rates.
Institution: Arizona State University
Language: English
Subfield: Safety Research
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Funders: National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Agriculture, University of Chicago, National Institutes of Health, Nutrition Obesity Research Center, University of North Carolina, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics
OpenAlex ID: W2512169538