Professional Role Confidence and Gendered Persistence in Engineering

Social-psychological research on gendered persistence in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields is dominated by two explanations: women leave because they perceive their future family plans to be at odds with the demands of STEM careers, and women’s low self-assessment of their skills in the intellectual tasks of STEM, net of their performance, leads to their attrition. This article uses original quantitative panel data to examine behavioral and intentional persistence among students who enter an engineering major in college. Surprisingly, family plans do not contribute to women’s attrition during college, but are negatively associated with men’s intentions to pursue an engineering career. Additionally, math self-assessment does not predict behavioral or intentional persistence once students have enrolled in a STEM major. This article introduces professional role confidence—one’s confidence in his or her ability to successfully fulfill the roles, competencies, and identity features of his or her profession—and argues that women’s lack of this confidence, compared to men, reduces their likelihood of remaining in engineering majors and careers. The authors find that professional role confidence predicts behavioral and intentional persistence, and that women’s relative lack of this confidence contributes to their attrition. Professional Role Confidence and Gendered Persistence 5 Professional Role Confidence and Gendered Persistence in Engineering