The impact of female role models leading a group mentoring program to promote STEM vocations among young girls

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dc.contributor.authorGuenaga Gómez, Mariluz
dc.contributor.authorEguíluz, Andoni
dc.contributor.authorGaraizar, Pablo
dc.contributor.authorMimenza Aurrekoetxea, Ander
dc.date.accessioned2025-07-15T10:21:23Z
dc.date.available2025-07-15T10:21:23Z
dc.date.issued2022-01-26
dc.date.updated2025-07-15T10:21:23Z
dc.description.abstractFrom an early age, girls disregard studies related to science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM), and this means that a gender gap begins during secondary education and continues to increase over time. Multiple causes have been identified for this phenomenon in the literature, and numerous initiatives are being carried out to reverse this situation. In this paper, we analyze the impact that a group mentoring initiative led by a female STEM role model had on the young people who participated and whether the impact was different based on their sex. We ana-lyzed how these mentoring sessions affected their attitudes towards technology, mathematical self-efficacy, gender stereotypes, science and technology references, and career vocations. To this end, 303 students between the ages of 10 and 12 years old from 10 schools in Spain participated in the six sessions comprising the program and completed a series of questionnaires before and after partici-pating. The results show that the program had an impact on the students’ attitudes towards tech-nology, increased the number of female STEM references they knew, and improved their opinions of vocations and professions related to science and technology. The impact was greater among girls, although in aspects such as attitudes towards technology, the female participants still demonstrated lower values than boys. The program did not improve the stereotypes that the young participants had about mathematical self-efficacy, which was also always lower among girls. We conclude that the lack of STEM vocations among girls is rooted in multiple social, educational, and personal aspects that need to be addressed from a very early age and that should involve multiple agents.en
dc.description.sponsorshipFECYT-Fundación Española de Ciencia y Tecnología (FCT-15-10615), BBK, Provincial Council of Alava, Provincial Council of Bizkaia, Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa (FDE-DN-2021-0137), Generalitat de Catalunya (PDAD31/20/00001), Barcelona Activa-Barcelona City Council, Donostia-San Sebastián City Council, L’Hospitalet City Council (AJT/34364/2020), HP Foundation - Silicon Valley Foundation: 2019-199501(5505), EJIE, Ibermática, BASF, Debegesa, DoW Chemical, Roche, Technology Parks of the Basque Country, Lantik, and Mercedes Benz and with the support of Innobasqueen
dc.identifier.citationGuenaga, M., Eguíluz, A., Garaizar, P., & Mimenza, A. (2022). The impact of female role models leading a group mentoring program to promote STEM vocations among young girls. Sustainability, 14(3). https://doi.org/10.3390/SU14031420
dc.identifier.doi10.3390/SU14031420
dc.identifier.eissn2071-1050
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14454/3224
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherMDPI
dc.rights© 2022 by the authors
dc.subject.otherFemale role model
dc.subject.otherGender
dc.subject.otherSTEM vocation
dc.titleThe impact of female role models leading a group mentoring program to promote STEM vocations among young girlsen
dc.typejournal article
dcterms.accessRightsopen access
oaire.citation.issue3
oaire.citation.titleSustainability
oaire.citation.volume14
oaire.licenseConditionhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
oaire.versionVoR
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