Perceptions of Skills Needed for STEM Jobs: Links to Academic Self-Concepts, Job Interests, Job Gender Stereotypes, and Spatial Ability in Young Adults

Abstract

Gender gaps in spatial skills—a domain relevant to STEM jobs—have been hypothesized to contribute to women’s underrepresentation in STEM fields. To study emerging adults’ beliefs about skill sets and jobs, we asked college students (N = 300) about the relevance of spatial, mathematical, science and verbal skills for each of 82 jobs. Analyses of responses revealed four job clusters—quantitative, basic & applied science, spatial, and verbal. Students’ ratings of individual jobs and job clusters were similar to judgments of professional job analysts (O*NET). Both groups connected STEM jobs to science, math, and spatial skills. To investigate whether students’ interests in STEM and other jobs are related to their own self-concepts, beliefs about jobs, and spatial performance, we asked students in another sample (N = 292) to rate their self-concepts in various academic domains, rate personal interest in each of the 82 jobs, judge cultural gender stereotypes of those jobs, and complete a spatial task. Consistent with prior research, jobs judged to draw on math, science, or spatial skills were rated as more strongly culturally stereotyped for men than women; jobs judged to draw on verbal skills were more strongly culturally stereotyped for women than men. Structural equation modeling showed that for both women and men, spatial task scores directly (and indirectly through spatial self-concept) related to greater interest in the job cluster closest to the one O*NET labeled “STEM”. Findings suggest that pre-college interventions that improve spatial skills might be effective for increasing spatial self-concepts and the pursuit of STEM careers among students from traditionally under-represented groups, including women.