The Nexus of Confidence and Gender in an Engineering Project-Based STEM Camp

Abstract

Careers in STEM are evolving and growing rapidly, creating a need for more qualified workers. Females are underrepresented in STEM fields despite the need for additional STEM professionals and programs designed to enfranchise women. Within this study, researchers examined how an individual’s confidence in his or her ability to implement the engineering design process and to create innovative products differed by gender. Given the underrepresentation of females in STEM fields, researchers in the present study believe that participating in a residential camp in which students attend daily STEM project-based classes that incorporate the engineering design process (EDP), panels sessions, and STEM lab tours with STEM professionals will improve their confidence. Seventy-two students responded to both the pre-and post- Students Attitudes toward STEM(S-STEM) surveys which were used to determine if students who attended a STEM camp in which they were introduced to and applied the engineering design process (EDP) experienced improved confidence in using the EDP. Cohen’s d effect sizes, confidence intervals, and paired t-tests were calculated by gender to analyze the data in this quasiexperimental study. Effect size results indicated males were more confident in their ability to design and build innovative products than females by more than one standard deviation. In addition, results from the paired t-tests by gender indicated that male students were statistically significantly more confident in designing and building innovative products by the end of camp. Conversely, female students became less confident in their ability to ideate, design, and build innovative products after attending the STEM summer camp. The combination of female students’ prior low self-confidence, working in co-educational groups, and the significant increase of male students’ confidence during the camp could have contributed to the perpetuation of female students’ low self-confidence in applying the engineering design process at the end of camp. These results underscore the importance of identifying methods that will enhance female students’ confidence in their abilities to ideate, design, and build innovative products.