The relationship of sex role orientation and gender to differences in student's definitional concept of technology, attitudes toward technology, and interest in technological careers

The object of this study was to investigate the extent to which differences in an individual's sex-role orientation and gender are associated with their attitude toward technology, definitional concept of technology, and their interest in pursuing a technological career. The purpose of the study was to clarify factors related to career development in this nontraditional career area.Subjects were 333 college students enrolled in freshman and sophomore English classes at Eastern Illinois University. The subjects were classified using the BEM Sex-Role Inventory. The male subjects formed groups of 69 stereotyped masculine males, 38 androgynous males, 11 feminine males and 23 undifferentiated males. The female subjects formed groups of 56 stereotypical females, 86 androgynous females, 22 masculine females and 28 undifferentiated females. The Technology Attitudinal Scale (TAS) was administered to address the dependent variables of attitude toward, definitional concept of, and career interest in technology.Differences on the dependent variable of attitude toward technology were found for the dependent variable of gender but not for sex-role orientation. No differences were found for any of the groups on the definitional concept variable. For the career interest variable, significant differences were found for both gender and sex-role orientation.Results of this study revealed that just because students display a common definition of and a positive attitude toward technology they are not equally interested in pursuing a technological career. Most obvious in the study were the differences along gender lines which supports previous research in this area of nontraditional career interest. The results of this study contribute to an understanding of how sex-role orientation and gender play a part in student's attitudes toward technology. The paper concludes with recommendations which address the imbalance of career interest in technology.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio