A lack of confidence exhibited by some women is the main contributor to the gender gap between the number of males and females studying engineering and following engineering careers, according to a study published in the October issue of the American Sociological Review.

The study also found that women who begin their freshman year of college with the intent of majoring in engineering are much more likely than their male peers to change career plans away from this field.

The research team for this study was awarded a grant by the National Science Foundation to study gender issues within engineering education. Researchers conducted the study by surveying students at the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Smith College and University of Massachusetts at Amherst, following students through their four years of college.

“We hypothesized that as a result of small biases, people tend to think that men are more competent engineers,” said postdoctoral fellow in sociology and co-researcher Erin Cech. “Women would actually develop less confidence in their ability to be an engineer when they were finished [with college] and have less confidence that engineering was the right profession for them.”

Results indicated that a self-evaluation of competence was not typically a reason for individuals of either gender to leave the field.

Researchers also discovered that men are deterred from a career path in engineering because of the intention of starting a family. This decision to have children did not seem to have as great an effect on the direction of women’s studies or careers.

“The family-plans effects for men and not for women were a surprise,” said co-researcher Brian Rubineau. “The others were consistent with hypotheses.”

Others find the study’s conclusion interesting because they are not reflected in the engineering community with which they interact.

Alyson Yamada ’13 is president of Stanford’s chapter of the Society of Women Engineers and is studying biomechanical engineering. Yamada has found in her own interactions that females at Stanford do not leave the engineering field for competence or confidence reasons but rather because another field better relates to their interests.

“There have been times when I’ve been on group projects for my own classes when I’ve been the only girl on the team, but that wasn’t the majority of teams in the class,” she said. “It’s not a deterring factor in an engineering class because I’m one of two women in the class.”

Yamada does acknowledge the gap between men and women in this area of study. She agreed with Cech and others that something must be done to address the divide. The Society of Women Engineers is actively working toward this end through outreach programs for students at the elementary, middle and high school levels and specifically targeting girls as it works to generate a general interest in the sciences.

“Our goal in doing that is to get students from a young age to get really excited about science, technology, engineering and math skills,” Yamada said. “In order to have a better distribution of men to women, creating an interest in engineering early on is key.”

Cech suggested addressing confidence at the college level to improve female-retention statistics in the field.

“It would be helpful to bring in people from the workforce and have them talk about insecurities that come with graduating with a degree and then going out into the workforce and having to be a practicing engineer,” Cech said. “This would allow students to see that any kind of lack of confidence is not a fault of their own but rather is just how the profession works.”