The conundrum of gender-science stereotypes: a review and discussion of measurements

Abstract

AbstractStereotypes do not have a unique definition, being mostly considered a generalized belief on the quality and characteristics of members of specific groups or social categories. Hence, various scales and measurements have been proposed to assess the endorsement of beliefs on the association of gender and scientific/language-related skills. The aim of the paper was to summarize, compare and discuss those measures, distinguishing between explicit, implicit and indirect measures. The review of the literature highlighted a huge but unrecognized heterogeneity in the constructs of gender stereotypes, especially for explicit measures. This can hamper findings comparability, reduce scales’ validity, affect the correlation between implicit and explicit measurements, and bias their interpretations due to ambiguous terminologies.