Female students continue to lag behind their male counterparts in STEM degree attainment despite performing as well as boys in mathematics and science in high school. Female students who expressed interest in mathematics and science may opt out of majoring in STEM once in college. Given that women may not be perceived as mathematics doers, this perception may affect their decision to pursue STEM careers. In many instances, it is the parents’ encouragement that helps their children to be persistent in mathematics and science. It is important to understand how parents’ involvement in the lives of high-achieving female college students contribute to them persisting and belonging in the STEM domain. In this narrative study, I explored parental influence on mathematics performance, self-efficacy and the factors that may contribute to high-achieving female college students’ interest and persistence in the STEM domain. The participants are eight high-achieving female students from an urban community college who are matriculated STEM majors. This study used Eccles et al.’s (1994) Expectancy-Value Theoretical Model of Achievement Choices and Phelan, Davidson & Yu’s (1998) Multiple Worlds Model to explore parent involvement and the factors that contribute to high-achieving college female’ persistence in STEM. Narratives of the female students’ mathematics experiences were constructed from data collected through multiple sources: student interviews, a parent interview, mathematics autobiographies, and questionnaires. Findings indicate that parents and other family members played an integral role in the students’ mathematics performance, mathematics self-efficacy and persistence in STEM. Furthermore, the depth of parental involvement of several of the participants was consistent throughout their college years.

A positive psychosocial intervention comprised of high autonomy support, task-involvement, and caring was implemented in physical activity classes to examine its effects on college women’s basic psychological needs (i.e. autonomy, competence, relatedness), exercise regulations (i.e. external, introjected, identified, integrated, intrinsic) and social physique anxiety (SPA). We hypothesized that at the end of the semester, participants in the intervention group (N = 73) would report greater need satisfaction, more self-determined regulations and less SPA than participants in the non-intervention group (N = 60). At T1 and T2, both the intervention and non-intervention participants reported “agreeing” with experiencing an autonomy supportive, task-involving, and caring environment. Furthermore, both groups at T1 and T2 reported moderate SPA. No significant group differences were found at T1. At T2, significant group differences were observed in the intervention and non-intervention groups’ report of external regulation and intrinsic regulation. The results suggests that group exercise instructors are capable of creating a positive psychosocial environment to enhance students’ intrinsic motivation.

This thesis reports on an ethnographic research project that explored the experiences and perspectives of a group of women in New Zealand higher education, including international and New Zealand students and partners of international students. The study had two aims. The first was to disrupt the inattention to gender and to students' partners and families in New Zealand international education research and policy. The second was to problematise Eurocentric assumptions of (predominantly Asian) international students' 'cultural difference', and of New Zealanders' homogenised sameness. The theoretical framework for the study was informed by a range of conceptual tools, including feminist, critical theory, post-structural, and postcolonial perspectives. In drawing on feminist perspectives, the study was driven by a concern with acknowledging the importance and value of women's lives, looking for women where they are absent from policy and analysis, and attending to the mechanisms through which some women's lives are rendered invisible in internationalised higher education. In considering these mechanisms and women's lives in relation to them the study also drew on post-structural notions of discourse, power, and agency. It explored how dominant discourses in internationalised higher education reveal and reproduce historically-grounded relations of power that are intentionally or unintentionally performed, subverted and/or resisted by women and those they encounter. Using Young's (1990, 2000) approach to critical theory, the study also considered alternative ways of constructing internationalised higher education that were suggested in women's accounts. As a critical feminist ethnography the study was shaped by my theoretical framework (above), critical literature on heterogeneous social groups, and feminist concerns with relationship, reciprocity and power in the research process. Fieldwork took place during 2005 and 2006 and involved two aspects: the establishment and maintenance of an intercultural group for women associated with a higher education institution, and 28 interviews with 20 women over two years. Interviewees were recruited through the group and included eight international students, nine New Zealand students and three women partners of international students. Study findings challenged the assumption that international and local students are distinct and oppositional groups. They also highlighted the importance of recognising the legitimate presence of international students' partners and accompanying family members at all levels in higher education. International and New Zealand women alike found the intercultural group a useful source of social and practical support and information, and a point of access to other sources of support and information. Women reflected on moving between many different kinds of living and learning contexts, highlighting the importance of: clear processes and pathways for accessing information and practical support when experiencing transition; teaching that is engaging, effective, and responsive; and opportunities to develop connections with other people both on and off campus. Rather than revealing clear patterns of difference or sameness across women, the study highlighted the importance of policy, research, teaching and support practices that are open and responsive to women's actual viewpoints and needs, and that neither re-entrench difference nor assume sameness.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 229-245). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

There is no abstract available for this thesis. / Department of Family and Consumer Sciences

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 101-104). / vi, 104 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a self-esteem inventory for Thai college women. Research questions included whether or not the developed inventory proved to be unidimensional or multidimensional and, if the latter proved to be the case, how many dimensions underlie the construct. The item pool consisted of 70 self-esteem statements derived from the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Inventory, the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory (Adult Form), and items developed for this investigation. Responses to each item were based upon a four point, Likert-type scale. The Delphi technique was applied as the content validation method. As a result of the Delphi process, 68 items were retained and used as a pilot study instrument. The pilot study was conducted among 70 college- age women in Bangkok, Thailand. Based upon item discrimination criteria, 52 items were selected for the final test instrument. The reliability of the pilot study instrument was determined to be +.91, based upon the Hoyt-Stunkard method. The 52-item instrument was then administered to 531 college-age female students in Bangkok, Thailand. Internal consistency reliability was +.94. Factor analysis was utilized to establish construct validity, to determine the dimensionality of the self-esteem instrument, and to identify the number of latent factors related to self-esteem. The concept of self-esteem was found to be multidimensional. The final 36-item instrument which resulted from this study was assessed by Hoyt-Stunkard analysis of variance to assure its reliability. Internal consistency reliability for the final instrument was +.91. Findings revealed that seven factors which reflected characteristics of self-esteem among Thai women were clustered significantly. These factors consisted of: 1) sense of family relations, 2) sense of self-worth, 3) sense of adequacy, 4) sense of competence, 5) sense of efficacy, 6) sense of confidence, and 7) sense of social and peer relations. Conclusions and implications derived from the study will provide a contribution to educational and psychological fields and to related women studies. / Graduation date: 1993

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Canterbury, 2008. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 59-61). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University, 1992. / Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Cynthia Johnson. Dissertation Committee: Dawn Person. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 104-115).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Psychology, Clinical Psychology, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.