Overconfidence = STEM Success?

source: ihatepresentations.com

/* It's been a long blogging hiatus. Am I going to get back to a more regular schedule?  I don't know, but I'm going to try. */

The "confidence gap" is a phenomenon I and many others have covered in spades before - the fact that women tend to have less confidence in their own abilities than men and the corresponding detrimental impact on women's advancement in the workplace, particularly in STEM fields.  An interesting academic article (h/t CNET) validates this phenomenon, but with a new twist -- it turns out that it may not be that women have unreasonably low self-perception, but rather that men may have a delusionally high self-perception.  And that self-perception translates into self-selecting out of STEM-based careers.  Or as the study puts it, "[t]he findings suggest that gender gaps in STEM fields are not necessarily the result of women underestimating their abilities, but rather may be due to men overestimating their abilities."


The article describes a pair of studies.  In the first study, college students, mostly freshmen, were given a pair of 15-minute tests, comprising 7 SAT questions each.  Between the first and second tests, the students were asked to estimate their performance, and were subsequently given a score for the first test.  The students then took a second test and were asked to estimate their performance.  After the first test, the men over-estimated their performance and women slightly underestimated their performance.  On the second test, those who had over-estimated their performance the first time did slightly worse, and those who had under-estimated their performance did slightly better.

In the second study, only one test was given, after which students were asked to estimate their own performance and state whether they expected to pursue math-related studies.  Those who over-estimated their own performance were more likely to be intending to pursue math than those who under-estimated their performance.  It's worth noting that while men were substantially more likely to over-estimate their performance than women, the women who did over-estimate their own performance were equally likely to intend to pursue math-related courses and careers as the men who similarly had high self-perception.

So the bottom line seems to be that we should be encouraging kids to see themselves as more successful than they really are in order to keep them going.  Maybe there is something to the trophies for everyone philosophy.

#LikeAGirl

[Image Source]

One of the Superbowl commercials that really stuck with me was the "Like A Girl" commercial (extended version embedded below).  It asks the viewer to question how using the phrase "like a girl" in a derogatory fashion impacts adolescent females.  I've never liked this phrase, but I never really thought about how hearing it impacts young girls.  But the commercial's assertion that building an association between being feminine and being inferior would undermine self-esteem makes perfect sense to me.  And once you have established that girls are inferior, there is no reason why that inferiority would only apply to physical prowess.

Also, as insults go, it's quite antiquated.  Sure, women tend to be weaker and slower than men, and if "like a girl" merely referred to speed or strength, that would be one thing - but it doesn't.  Running, throwing, or hitting like a girl means that you are using bad form, looking clumsy and foolish.  There probably was a time, perhaps when my mother was a child, when girls were not taught how to play sports and college women played six-on-six basketball in skirts.  But at least for the last several decades, it's incredibly common for girls to play coed team sports as young children, learning to run, hit, and throw just like boys do.  So why does "like a girl" conjure up images of doing something poorly?  It shouldn't, and I will call it out when I hear it being misused.

Links Roundup - January 2015

In my attempt to get back on a semi-regular posting schedule, here are some stories I've found
interesting over the last couple of months:

Separate those with prior programming experience from those without for introductory CS classes?  In its call for grant proposals to grow undergraduate computer science  participation, Google suggests this and other strategies to cut down on the intimidation factor in entry-level CS classes.

It's the best women who are more likely to leave the tech industry, says the LA Times.

When did women stop coding, and why?  NPR has some data and thoughts.

Telling the stories of pioneering women in STEM - some great stories at told on this new page from the White House.

Just an Hour - I missed CS Education Week, but it's never too late to try an hour of code.

Why does it matter?  National Geographic has several good reasons why ensuring that women and others with different perspectives can and has benefited the progress of science.

Advice for software engineers - female or otherwise. Hackbright Academy ended 2014 with a list of 12 great pieces of advice.  I especially like #9 - ask for help.  I'm notoriously bad at that one.

The Only Girl in the Room

Source

A lot of people, myself included, worry that geek culture drives women away from technical roles, but that has never been a personal issue for me.  I actually share a lot of the interests and hobbies that constitute geek culture, but that leads to an entirely different problem - one based entirely on perception and meta-perception.  My best friends are usually guys.

As a teenager I built my own computers and experimented with various alternative operating systems (OS/2, Linux, BSD, and even BeOS).  I co-SysOp'd a BBS starting when I was 12 and ran my own solo for a few years in there.  I'm perfectly happy to discuss with you the correct order in which to watch Star Wars (it's 4,5,2,3,6), even though I'm more of a Star Trek person (although, unlike my male friends, I actually liked Wesley Crusher).  In college, I spent about as many hours pushing heavy speakers around campus and hanging lights from trusses as I did attending class.  And more recently I've become obsessed with an incredibly geeky and amazingly addictive game (Ingress - Warning: causes insomnia, purging of one color from your wardrobe, volunteering to go on random errands, and planning of your life around 5-hour cycles).

What do all of these have in common?  They are all overwhelmingly "guy things."  That means it's almost certain that I am going to be hanging out with a bunch of guys -- it's not uncommon for me to be the only girl in the room in my hobbies as well as my job.  I don't mind.  My husband doesn't mind.  My relationship with these guys is no different than their relationships with each other, and yet sometimes I can't help but worry what other people (their wives/girlfriends, other coworkers, random strangers) think seeing us spend time together.  I'm sure the same thoughts are running through their heads.

In an earlier post, I suggested that we try to make sure that geek culture does not become an implicit job requirement for technical jobs - and I think that's especially important in light of the fact that even girls who share geek culture can run into problems.  But there is a reason we geeks like these things, and I think there are probably some helpful skills that are cultivated in pursuit of geeky hobbies.  I'm not going to stop my geeky hobbies, even if it means being surrounded by guys.  So if you see me spending time with a guy, don't assume there's anything between us.