How Interest in Science Negatively Influences Perceptions of Women

We examined whether women who pursue scientific training are viewed negatively by college students. Participants (N = 114 college students; 56 women, 58 men) saw a woman describe her major (either chemistry or the humanities) and express either strong commitment to her course of study or ambivalence about it. Participants then provided judgments about the speaker's traits (such as assertiveness and sociability), social behaviors (including how often she dates), and her future potential (including happiness and fulfillment with her career, as well as starting salary). Results indicated that both major and commitment level influenced perceptions of the speaker. Commitment to the major increased judgments of future career fulfillment, intellectual competence, school achievement, and assertiveness. Pursuit of chemistry, however, was perceived as negative, as people judged the woman as less sociable when she was committed to being a chemist, and women participants predicted she would have a less fulfilling career. Men participants said they would not want to date her. Although women may understand that they could make more money in the sciences, negative judgments about their social capabilities and future happiness may contribute to their propensity to avoid science.     

Gender Differences in Risk and Protective Factors for Suicidal Ideation Among College Students

The correlates and predictors of suicidal ideation were examined in 303 male and 691 female undergraduates. Results indicated that hopelessness predicted suicidal ideation in both samples; however, depression was found to be a significant suicide risk factor only in women. In contrast, alcohol-related problems and social support from family predicted suicidal ideation in men, but not in women. In addition, for both men and women perceived burdensomeness was a suicide risk factor and reasons for living a protective factor. When assessing risk for suicide, our results suggest that practitioners may need to focus more on depressive symptoms in women and more on alcohol-related problems in men, while considering hopelessness, perceived burdensomeness, and reasons for living regardless of gender. Prevention programs which target these identified risk and protective factors for suicidality should be developed specifically for college men and women.     

激励大学生运动承诺干预研究

旨在加快改善大学生体质状况的高校体育教育之路任重道远。以往研究发现大学生的运动承诺水平越高,运动行为的坚持性越强。运用文献资料等研究方法,对影响大学生运动承诺的因素进行研究,提出激励大学生运动承诺的干预对策:发挥课堂优势,培养参与乐趣;重建课程结构,提供更多参与机会;合理分配教学内容,提高个人投入;创新评价制度,加强学生参与运动的正向约束力;完善高校体育管理制度,营造良好的参与氛围。     

The nonretention of capable women engineering students

This study investigated aptitude, achievement, and retention patterns among 273 women and 1,953 male students who entered engineering at The University of Texas at Austin as freshmen in the fall semesters of 1974–1977. Academic and attrition records were maintained through the fall of 1978 for the sample. Multiple regression techniques were used to predict both academic achievement and retention on the basis of college entrance scores and high school rank. In addition, first-year grade-point average was included as a predictor of retention. The Mathematics Achievement Test, Level I, emerged as primary predictor of cumulative grade-point average for both men and women, and first year grade-point average the best single predictor of retention for men, but combined with entrance scores for retention prediction among women. Academic performance was more easily predicted for women than men, but retention was more easily predicted for men. Female nonretainees in engineering score higher on all variables than male nonretainees, and female retainees make similar grades to male retainees. More capable women than men are transferring to other majors within the University, especially to the natural sciences. Unlike men, women leaving engineering and the University did not do so for academic failure. This study suggests that a support system developed to counsel women in engineering might contribute positively to their retention.     

PEER AND STUDENT-FACULTY RELATIONS IN COMMUNITY COLLEGES

This study investigated differences in peer and student?faculty relationships of male and female community college students. Men reported more frequent participation in college activities, whereas women reported more frequent involvement in less formal activities such as studying with other students. Women had less difficulty than men meeting and making friends. For both men and women, little student?faculty interaction outside the classroom was reported.     

Application of a Relational Model to Understanding Body Image in College Women and Men

Relational cultural theory was examined in relation to body image in two samples of college women (n = 102) and men (n = 78) from a Midwestern university. Participants completed measures of mutuality and body image satisfaction. Results revealed that low mutuality with mothers and fathers predicted body dissatisfaction in both men and women, and low mutuality with romantic partners predicted body dissatisfaction in women. For women, when the shared variance between mothers and fathers was removed, mutuality with fathers was associated with body satisfaction as well as several indexes of body image, including evaluation of overall appearance, level of fitness, and overall health. For men, mutuality with mothers, fathers, and friends was associated with several body image scales. Additional findings and implications for working with college students are discussed.     

An Assessment of Pronouns as Linguistic Cues for Predicting Work Attitudes

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich (Reich, 1993) proposed that the pronouns employees use to describe their organization reveal information about their levels of engagement and affective commitment at work. In particular, he predicted that employees who describe their organization using the pronoun “we” are more engaged and committed than those who use the pronoun “they” in describing their organization. Reich's proposal has intuitive appeal and has been repeated in popular press accounts, but the accuracy of his prediction has not been empirically evaluated. In this article, we systematically examine the “Reich test” and find that the gender of the respondent is an important boundary condition to Reich's prediction. That is, our findings suggest that use of the pronoun “we” may serve as a predictor of work engagement and affective commitment for men, but not for women. We discuss the implications of these findings and the promise of exploring employees' linguistic indicators to understand social, affective, and cognitive psychological processes.     

深圳市高校女教师体育健身现状调查与分析

通过文献资料法、问卷调查法等研究方法,从体育健身的场所、体育健身的时间以及体育健身的项目等方面了解和掌握深圳市高校女教师的体育健身现状,从中分析和发现影响深圳市高校女教师体育健身的相关因素,结合现实条件和有关政策提出加强高校女教师体育健身的建议和对策,为有关管理部门提供参考,从而通过体育健身提高高校女教师的身体素质,培养她们良好的生活习惯和生活方式,使她们能够以健康的身体和充沛的精力投入到教育事业中,为我国教育科研事业的发展和社会的进步做出更大的贡献。     

Gender Bias in the Prediction of College Course Performance

Is the relationship of college grades to the traditional predictors of aptitude test scores and high school grades different for men and women? The usual gender bias of underpredicting the grade point averages of women may result from gender-related course selection effects. This study controlled course selection effects by predicting single course grades rather than a composite grade from several courses. In most of the large introductory courses studied, no gender bias was found that would hold up on cross-validation in a subsequent semester. Usually, it was counterproductive to adjust grade predictions according to gender. Grade point average was predicted more accurately than single course grades     

Science Background and Spatial Abilities in Men and Women

Deficits in spatial abilities, particularly mental rotation (MR), may contribute to women's avoidance of areas of study that rely on MR, including chemistry. Women who do experience success in chemistry may do so because they have good MR skills. We examined MR ability, assessed by the Purdue Visual Rotations Test (PVRT; Bodner and R. B. (1997)) in three groups of students: those with no college science background, those with a limited college science background that did not include organic chemistry, and those with more extensive science background including organic chemistry. Men and women with extensive background that included organic chemistry performed equally on the MR task, as did those students who had no college science background. However, men outperformed women on the MR task if they had limited science training, although this effect was mediated by the total number of chemistry courses taken. Self-reports of competence on the task were positively related to MR ability, but neither self-described effort nor other background variables (such as experience with spatial tasks and participation in athletics) were important to MR. Grades in science courses were not related to MR capability for any group of students. Our results suggest that while women often show a lesser ability with MR tasks, this deficit may not be an important contribution to women's tendency to avoid the physical sciences.     

大学生身体自尊与体育锻炼行为的关系研究

体育锻炼促进心理健康研究的热点之一是身体锻炼与身体自尊的关系问题.文章采用问卷调查法,对大学生身体自尊与体育锻炼坚持性进行调查和分析.研究发现,大学生身体自尊与体育锻炼行为之间存在显著相关,其中有关运动能力的认知和评价受到体育锻炼坚持行为的影响;体育锻炼者身体自尊与非体育锻炼者差异显著并呈性别差异;体育锻炼与运动能力、身体吸引力及身体价值感三个维度的关系最为密切;通过长期坚持体育锻炼能够改变身体自尊水平,尤其是提高运动能力的自我评价水平.     

A very English revolution: the impacts of co-residence at the University of Oxford

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the impacts of co-residence (admitting women to men’s colleges and men to women’s colleges) at the University of Oxford beginning in the 1970s. Co-residence increased the representation of women undergraduates at Oxford to near parity with men; the representation of women in academic positions rose but not as substantially as that of women undergraduates and postgraduates and today women comprise still only a third of academics in the colleges of the university; the fellowships of the former female colleges became genuinely mixed, the fellowships of the former male colleges more slowly; women are less likely to be appointed head of a former men’s college than are men to be appointed head of a former women’s college; the quality of Oxford undergraduates rose with the increased number of female undergraduates; and the quality of undergraduates in the former male colleges rose at the expense of the female colleges.     

The Effects of Role Congruence and Role Conflict on Work,Marital, and Life Satisfaction

The impact of role congruence and role conflict on work, marital, and life satisfaction was studied using Super’s life-span, life-space theory. A conceptual model of relationships between these variables was proposed, and gender differences were examined. Participants were 35 male and 60 female college graduates who completed surveys by mail. Results indicated adequate fit for the proposed model. Results of gender analyses indicated that women in this study participated more in parenting and housework, whereas men participated more in career and leisure activities. Despite the differences in actual role participation, no gender differences were found regarding ideal role participation. Both men and women reported that the parent role was most rewarding. Implications for counselors and directions for future research were discussed.     

Effects of Gender and Collaboration on College Students' Performance on a Piagetian Spatial Task

Ninety-one college students (69 women, 22 men) participated in a brief intervention to explore the effects of peer collaboration on the acquisition of the understanding that water remains invariantly horizontal. Working from a Piagetian, constructivist perspective, the authors expected that the opportunity to explore and discuss the representation of liquid in a tilted container with a peer would enhance the students' understanding of the water-level problem. The men outperformed the women. Although peer collaboration did not lead to greater understanding than working alone, peer interaction data showed that the men and women talked about the problem differently. Furthermore, the use of gesture during peer discussion predicted spatial understanding. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for research on peer learning.     

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN WOMEN AND MEN REGARDING DECISIONS TO COMMIT TEST CHEATING

Few studies investigating student cheating havereported statistical tests of difference regarding theeffects of variables across gender. Using scenario-basedsurvey data from 598 university students, this study examined differences between womenand men in mean levels and effects of explanatoryvariables on intentions to cheat on a college exam.Findings showed significant gender differences in mean scores on measures of low self-control, shame,perceived external sanctions, grades, and cheatingintentions. Regression analyses showed that the effectsof morals and grades were more pronounced in predicting women's cheating intentions, whereas men weremore affected by prior cheating and perceived pleasureof cheating. Analyses further showed that higher levelsof anticipated shame among women and less self-control among men accounted for most of the variationin cheating intentions between women and men.     

The relationship between alumni satisfaction and work experiences

Although alumni surveys frequently include questions about work experiences, little information is available about the relationship between work experiences and alumni satisfaction with college. The results of the present research indicate that work experiences are significantly related to alumni ratings of their college experiences. Specifically, alumni who are satisfied with their jobs are more likely to report being satisfied with their education experiences. The results of this research also indicate that women are less satisfied with their pay than men. Compared to men, women are neither more dissatisfied with the types of work they are performing nor more likely to be looking for another job. Counter to expectation, dissatisfaction with pay has a more significant effect on ratings of college experiences for women than for men. Presented at the 1993 AIR Forum, Chicago, May 1993.     

高校青年教师的婚恋压力及主观幸福感的相关研究

本研究采用自编高校青年教师婚恋压力量表、段建华修订的总体幸福感量表,对武汉地区5所高校300名35岁以下青年教师进行调查。结果发现：高校青年教师存在较大的婚恋压力;高校青年教师主观幸福感稍微高于全国男性和女性常模,属于中等偏上;高校青年教师的伴侣压力、家庭压力、经验压力与主观幸福感显著负相关。     

Type and severity of child abuse and college students'' lifetime suicidality

Objective: The present study compared reported histories and severity of child sexual abuse, child physical abuse, and both, in college men and women.Method: Four hundred and eighty-six consenting undergraduates completed measures of suicidality, sexual abuse (SA), and physical abuse (PA). Based on their responses, they were categorized into 12 mutually exclusive groups: no PA/no SA (n = 234), moderate PA/no SA (n = 78), severe PA/no SA (n = 34), no PA/mild SA (n = 21), moderate PA/mild SA (n = 12), severe PA/mild SA (n = 5), no PA/moderate SA (n = 20), moderate PA/moderate SA (n = 15), and severe PA/moderate SA (n = 10).Results: Participants who reported both severe sexual and severe physical abuse reported more lifetime suicidality than participants who reported either mild sexual and/or physical abuse. Those who reported sexual abuse involving invasive sexual acts such as rape, and physical abuse involving behaviors that resulted in physical injury to the child, were more suicidal than those who reported less severe abuse. In addition, although combined sexual and physical abuse correlated with increased suicidality, unexpectedly, there was no interaction. Finally, women students endorsed more reasons for living than men and about the same level of suicidal ideas and global suicidality, despite a greater likelihood of having been abused.Conclusions: The absence of an interaction between sexual and physical abuse suggests that this increased suicidality is additive rather than multiplicative. An implication is that college counseling personnel need to be aware of the suicidal risk of women and men students reporting either sexual or physical abuse.     

Inter-Relations Between Ethnic-Racial Discrimination and Ethnic-Racial Identity Among Early Adolescents

The authors examined whether the longitudinal inter-relations between ethnic-racial discrimination and ethnic-racial identity vary according to the perpetrator of discrimination. The authors used three waves of data from early adolescents (n = 387; ages 11–12 at Wave 1) to assess the strength and direction of relations between perceived discrimination from non-school adults and peers vis-à-vis ethnic-racial identity exploration, commitment, private regard, and public regard. Cross-lagged autoregressive path analyses showed that more frequent discrimination, regardless of source, had reciprocal and significant longitudinal inter-relations with exploration and public regard. Peer discrimination predicted lower commitment and private regard 1 year later, whereas non-school adult discrimination did not. Implications are discussed in relation to the role of peers and ethnic-racial identity processes.     

Bye bye Ms. American Sci: Women and the leaky STEM pipeline

More than two-thirds of STEM jobs are held by men. In this paper, I provide a detailed analysis of the STEM pipeline from high school to mid-career in the United States, decomposing the gender gap in STEM into six stages. Women are lost from STEM before college, during college, and after college. Men are more likely to be STEM-ready before college, scoring higher on science tests and having taken more advanced math and science courses. This accounts for 35% of the overall gender gap in STEM careers. During college, men are far more likely than women to start in a STEM major, accounting for 26% of the gap. After college, male STEM graduates are more likely to enter STEM jobs, accounting for 41%. Men’s higher persistence in STEM majors is a smaller factor, while women attend college at higher rates than men, which works to reduce the final gender gap in STEM. The results show that there is no single stage to focus on in understanding the gender gap in STEM.