The under-representation of women in science-related fields has serious economic and social implications as Canada is confronted by a shortage of scientists especially in engineering and the applied sciences. The purpose of this study was to investigate similarities and differences between second-year female college students (N = 79) who intend to pursue pure and applied sciences (PAS), and their male counterparts (N = 81), and between PAS females and females who intend to pursue health sciences (HS) (N = 85). The study investigated the relative importance of motivational, self-concept-related, and sociopsychological variables on women's science college majors. The following measures were administered once: (1) Educational Aspiration Questionnaire, (2) Mastery Scale (Farmer, 1981), (3) Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory (Hansen & Campbell, 1985), (4) Ability and Effort Attribution Measure (Farmer, 1981), (5) Attitudes Toward Women Scale (Spence, Helmreich & Stapp, 1973), (6) Parent, Teacher, and Counsellor Support Scales, respectively (Farmer, 1981). The Stated Occupational Questionnaire was administered twice, three months apart. Results indicated that females in PAS had more liberal attitudes toward women, had more interests in medical sciences and services, and had fewer interests in mechanical activities and physical sciences than the males. However, the overall statistical analyses indicated far more similarities than differences between females and males in PAS, and also between females in PAS and HS except in the area of measured interests. While further research on the above variables over time is warranted, these findings have important implications for counselling psychologists.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.41045 |
| Date | January 1992 |
| Creators | Tarquinio-Mammone, Susan |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Educational Psychology and Counselling.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001326000, proquestno: NN87974, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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