Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003.
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2017 Jun 6;114(23):5964-5969. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1613117114. Epub 2017 May 22.
Scientific and engineering innovation is vital for American competitiveness, quality of life, and national security. However, too few American students, especially women, pursue these fields. Although this problem has attracted enormous attention, rigorously tested interventions outside artificial laboratory settings are quite rare. To address this gap, we conducted a longitudinal field experiment investigating the effect of peer mentoring on women's experiences and retention in engineering during college transition, assessing its impact for 1 y while mentoring was active, and an additional 1 y after mentoring had ended. Incoming women engineering students ( = 150) were randomly assigned to female or male peer mentors or no mentors for 1 y. Their experiences were assessed multiple times during the intervention year and 1-y postintervention. Female (but not male) mentors protected women's belonging in engineering, self-efficacy, motivation, retention in engineering majors, and postcollege engineering aspirations. Counter to common assumptions, better engineering grades were not associated with more retention or career aspirations in engineering in the first year of college. Notably, increased belonging and self-efficacy were significantly associated with more retention and career aspirations. The benefits of peer mentoring endured long after the intervention had ended, inoculating women for the first 2 y of college-the window of greatest attrition from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors. Thus, same-gender peer mentoring for a short period during developmental transition points promotes women's success and retention in engineering, yielding dividends over time.
科学和工程创新对于美国的竞争力、生活质量和国家安全至关重要。然而，很少有美国学生（尤其是女性）从事这些领域。尽管这个问题引起了极大的关注，但在人为的实验室环境之外，经过严格测试的干预措施却相当罕见。为了解决这一差距，我们进行了一项纵向实地实验，研究同伴指导对女性在大学过渡期间工程经历和保留的影响，在指导活动进行期间评估其影响 1 年，并在指导结束后再评估 1 年。新入学的女性工科学生（n=150）被随机分配给女性或男性同龄导师或没有导师 1 年。在干预年和干预后 1 年期间，他们的经历多次被评估。女性（而非男性）导师保护了女性在工程学中的归属感、自我效能感、动机、工程专业保留率以及大学毕业后的工程职业抱负。与普遍的假设相反，在大学的头一年，更好的工程成绩与更多的保留率或工程职业抱负并没有关联。值得注意的是，归属感和自我效能感的增强与更多的保留率和职业抱负显著相关。同伴指导的好处在干预结束后很久仍在持续，为女性在大学的头 2 年（科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）专业流失率最高的时期）提供了保护。因此，在发展过渡点，同龄同性别的同伴指导在短时间内促进了女性在工程学中的成功和保留，随着时间的推移产生了回报。
