Gender Identity and Academic Confidence Across College Major Fields

This study aimed to measure college students’ sense of personal efficacy and sense of belonging among various majors, specifically concerning the differences across gender identities. The findings thus indicate whether gender experience and norms impact some majors more than others, demonstrating how a history of male domination in certain fields can be internalized on a population level. A total of 300 respondents from a large public university in the northeast United States completed an online survey. In this survey, questions pertaining to self-reported gender identity; school of the respondent’s major, such as life sciences or liberal arts; and agreement with statements concerning one’s success and sense of belonging were posed to measure the relationship between the variables. The statements “I feel like I belong in my major” and “I feel successful in my major” will be referred to in this paper as “academic attitude” variables. Results from our survey, of which a majority of respondents were female, showed statistically significant relationships between major and academic attitudes and gender identity and major choice, as well as between gender and perceived personal success