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Gender
TABLE IID-4
CHANGE IN SELF-CONFIDENCE IN MECHANICAL ABILITY FROM FALL TO SPRING
BY FAMILY BACKGROUND AND GENDER
Change in
Confidence in
Mechanical
Ability
% Fathers
with College
education
% Mothers
with College
Education
Father’s
mean
occupational
prestige
Mean
number
of
siblings
% whose
siblings
went to
college
IID-148
Support of
significant
others for
engineering
Males Decreased 51.6 50.0 52.4 2.1 34.0 7.12
Same 50.5 41.3 53.1 1.8 46.0 6.26
Increased 48.8 34.2 53.6 2.2 36.0 7.07
Females Decreased 28.6 64.3 41.5 2.0 50.0 6.44
Same 54.6 57.6 53.9 2.0 44.0 6.67
Increased 78.6 64.3 55.5 1.6 52.0 6.62
With regard to high school background, none of the relationships with change in self-
confidence are statistically significant, and the patterns are even more obscure than with
family background, both for males and for females (not shown here). Apparently,
changes in self-confidence result not from background influences but more in terms of
experiences over the course of the year.
CHANGES IN SELF-CONFIDENCE AND PARTICIPATION IN
ENGINEERING ACTIVITIES
Next we considered whether involvement in the extra-curricular engineering activities
offered at Rowan affected students’ engineering self-confidence. For males, involvement
in the various kinds of enrichment activities, counseling, study and organizational
activities is not significantly related to changes in self-confidence (Table IID-5).
Apparently students who are more involved in non-engineering activities have lowered
their confidence that they belong in engineering (but, of course, it is not clear which
comes first – the lowered confidence, or the pull to be involved outside of engineering).
For the women, there is a clearer pattern that the women whose self-confidence in