Liu, Y., & Verdin, D., & Sonnert, G. (2021, July), Understanding How Social Agents and Communicative Messages Influence Female Students’ Engineering Career Interest From High School to First Semester of College (Fundamental)  Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--37959

\bibitem{asee_peer_37959}
  Liu, Y., \& Verdin, D., \& Sonnert, G. (2021, July), \emph{Understanding How Social Agents and Communicative Messages Influence Female Students’ Engineering Career Interest From High School to First Semester of College (Fundamental)}
  Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference.
  10.18260/1-2--37959

Yue Liu, Dina Verdin, and Gerhard Sonnert.  "Understanding How Social Agents and Communicative Messages Influence Female Students’ Engineering Career Interest From High School to First Semester of College (Fundamental)".  2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference, 2021, July.  ASEE Conferences, 2021.  https://peer.asee.org/37959 Internet.  13 Mar, 2025

\bibitem{asee_peer_37959}
  Yue Liu, Dina Verdin, and Gerhard Sonnert.
  "Understanding How Social Agents and Communicative Messages Influence Female Students’ Engineering Career Interest From High School to First Semester of College (Fundamental)".
  \emph{2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference, 2021, July}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2021.
  https://peer.asee.org/37959 Internet.  13 Mar, 2025

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_37959
author = "Yue Liu, Dina Verdin, and Gerhard Sonnert"
title = "Understanding How Social Agents and Communicative Messages Influence Female Students’ Engineering Career Interest From High School to First Semester of College (Fundamental)"
booktitle = "2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access"
year = "2021"
month = "July"
address = "Virtual Conference"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/37959}
number = {10.18260/1-2--37959}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Many researchers have investigated how to increase female and minority students’ engineering
career interests, but they are still severely underrepresented in the field of engineering. Prior
literature demonstrated that various factors contribute to students’ engineering career interests,
such as self-efficacy and social support. Previous research also explained that students’ early
engineering interest was the most influential predictor of their college majors and career choices
in engineering. Therefore, it is necessary to examine students’ engineering career interest
trajectories prior to college to better understand how students develop or hinder their interest in
an engineering career. This study answers the following research question: “Which social agents
and what communicative messages influence female students’ intentions to choose engineering
as a career at the beginning of high school, end of high school, and the first semester of college?”

We used a cross-sectional dataset collected from students enrolled in first-semester English
courses at 23 four-year institutions and 4 two-year institutions across the United States. The
survey was a retrospective examination of students’ (both engineering majors and nonengineering
majors) career interests, attitudes, and beliefs about engineering and broadly STEM.
Students indicated career interests at different stages in their lives (e.g., during middle school,
beginning of high school, end of high school, and beginning of college). Logistic regression was
used to understand the social support factors promoting engineering career interests during the
four retrospective time points. Our findings demonstrated that at the beginning of high school,
Latinas were more likely to choose engineering as a career. However, by the end of high school,
Asian girls had higher odds of choosing engineering as a career, whereas multiracial girls had a
decreased likelihood. These changes revealed the impact of race/ethnicity on girls’ engineering
career interests at different time points during high school. Our findings also indicated that
different social agents, such as fathers, high school teachers, and siblings, had various impacts on
girls’ engineering career interests at different stages of high school. At the beginning of high
school, female students who chose engineering as a career were more likely to be encouraged by
their fathers and teachers, however, in the end, female students were more likely to be
encouraged by their fathers and siblings.

This study helps disentangle the influence social agents have on female high schoolers’ interest
in engineering careers. Furthermore, a deeper understanding of how factors influence the chances
of female students’ engineering career interest during high school and first semester of college
will help the engineering education research community develop more effective strategies in
improving female and minority student participation.


AU  - Yue Liu
AU  - Dina Verdin
AU  - Gerhard Sonnert
CY  - Virtual Conference
DA  - 2021/07/26
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Understanding How Social Agents and Communicative Messages Influence Female Students’ Engineering Career Interest From High School to First Semester of College (Fundamental)
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/37959
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--37959
ER  -