WLA 2018 Report - Draft 1-2

Majority of students at ALU believe that confidence is
crucial to success. While 60% of students rate males and
females as equally confident on average, only 3.5%
students rate women as more confident. This is in stark
contrast to the 23% of respondents who rate men as
more confident.
On a similar note, female students believe that their
confidence is highly affected by the ALU environment
and culture. Females also feel more pressure to perform
as well as their peers than their male counterparts and
feel significantly less accomplished than their peers.
Thus, it can be concluded that female students at ALU are less confident than their male peers owing
to their belief that they’re not as accomplished as their peers. Since ALU’s environment has more of
an effect on females’ confidence, this can be leveraged to actively increase their confidence.
Key Next Steps
Since ALU’s environment has more of an effect on females’ confidence, this can be leveraged to
actively increase their confidence. Confidence is a very personal and as such, the development of it
has to be driven by the individual. However, ALU can actively create spaces where both male and
female students are can discuss their various ambitions, form plans to achieve them and actively
overcome internal challenges, such as confidence, and external ones. This could be by bringing back
Advisory Squads with more structure such that the above can be implemented and measured.
Notably, research has shown that confidence is volitional (ie: it can be built) with consistent effort
(Warrel, 2015). Thus, with intentional effort, the confidence gap between male and female students
can be narrowed.
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