THARUNIKA GNANESHAN
she/her | Pickering, ON
National Silver Medalist, Canadian Science Fair | Western University Entrance Scholarship Winner | National Semi-Finalist, Technovation Canada | 1st in Medical Spelling at FLC, HOSA Canada | Two-time Gold Medalist, Beaver Computing Challenge | Two-time Finalist, Russian Math Olympiad | Three-time Gold Medalist, Canadian Math Kangaroo Contest
Edited by Luke Grater & Emily Lind
INTRODUCTION
The term “STEM” refers to the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. A STEM degree holder or a STEM employee is defined as a person holding a degree or working in the STEM sector, that covers any of the seventy-four standard occupations in life, agriculture, environmental, physical, earth, computer, and information sciences, engineering, architecture, math, statistics, and health-related occupations, respectively (Fry et al., 2021). With jobs on the rise, STEM fields offer promising opportunities for a lucrative career. Between 2021 and 2031, STEM occupations are projected to grow 10.8 percent, with all other careers expected to grow at 4.9 percent (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics a, 2023). Employment in software development, specifically, is expected to grow by over 22 percent (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics b, 2023). In Canada, the lowest average base salary for STEM employees is over $66,000 CAD, with most averaging more than $85,000 CAD (Lindzon, 2023). A computer science major, specifically, can earn 40% more than the average college student (Hamilton Project, 2020). In 2019, unemployment rates were lower among the STEM labour force (2%) compared to the non-STEM labour force (4%), and this pattern persisted throughout the COVID-19 pandemic (Okren & Burke, 2021).
While STEM careers have increased earning potential, greater job stability and a bigger job market, women of colour (WOC) are severely underrepresented in these fields. In 2019, the share of adult WOC was 20.3% of the American population (Quick take, 2023) but the share of WOC in the STEM employees was only 11.6% (Quick take, 2022). WOC also earned the smallest share of STEM degrees; In 2018, WOC earned 14.1% of total bachelor’s degrees across all STEM fields (Quick take, 2022).
However, WOC in STEM are necessary to introduce diverse perspectives to STEM, reduce health disparities and address bias in STEM. Having diverse voices in STEM can help identify and address biases in research, education, and workplace practices. It can also lead to more innovative solutions to complex problems. When STEM is dominated by a single demographic group, many important issues will be overlooked and there will be a decline in creativity. For example, WOC in North America have faced significant health disparities, particularly in maternal health overtime, due to a lack of representation in research. Research into breast cancer, specifically, has mostly only focused on variants that are common in Caucasian women (Yedjou et al., 2019). It neglects the fact that WOC, particularly African American women, are more likely to develop triple-negative breast cancer, which is often more aggressive and harder to treat (Yedjou et al., 2019). Having WOC in STEM can help drive research and innovation to address these disparities, leading to improved healthcare outcomes and reduced mortality rates.
WOC STEM degree-holders and employees can also help many people of colour rebuild trust in healthcare. For instance, vaccine hesitancy among people of colour is often rooted in historical and contemporary injustices, like the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and other unethical medical practices (CDC, 2022). WOC in STEM can help develop more inclusive vaccine outreach strategies and help individuals of colour become more informed. Case in point, Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, an African American immunologist, played a crucial role in developing the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine (Kamin, 2023). Her expertise helped ensure that the vaccine was effective for a diverse population (Kamin, 2023).
Role-model intervention, specifically, has been shown to increase interest in STEM for young girls/women of colour. For instance, a Europe- and US-wide study of girls and young women showed that the number of girls interested in STEM almost doubled, and the interest in careers in these fields increased when they had a role model to inspire them (Microsoft, 2018).
Another study conducted with 304 girls, from the ages of 12 to 16, evaluated a role-model intervention in which female volunteers working in STEM went into schools to talk to girls about their careers (González-Pérez et al., 2020). The expectancy-value theory describes the relationship between a student's expectancy for success at a task and the value of task completion(González-Pérez et al., 2020). An adaptation of the expectancy-value theory of achievement motivation was used to evaluate the extent to which this role-model intervention improved the girls’ beliefs that they could be successful in STEM fields and the likelihood of them becoming STEM employees. The results of the analysis revealed that, on average, the role-model intervention had a significant positive effect on the girls’ aspirations to enter the STEM field and a negative effect on gender stereotypes (González-Pérez et al., 2020). From the above studies it is apparent that the knowledge of role models in the STEM community can have a positive impact on the number of WOC STEM degree-holders and employees.
However, mentorship opportunities for female youth of colour are quite uncommon and hard to come by in many places across the globe. Rural communities, especially, often lack access to the same educational resources and opportunities as urban communities. This can include limited access to quality STEM education, after-school programs, science centres, and extracurricular activities that foster STEM interests (Cross et al., 2019). Rural areas also often have fewer networking opportunities compared to urban centres which can make it difficult for young girls to find WOC mentors in STEM (Cross et al., 2019). The grave underrepresentation of WOC in STEM also poses many challenges, itself. With fewer WOC in STEM working professionally it can make it especially difficult for female youth of colour to envision themselves pursuing STEM careers.
This study examines this concept in detail by analysing how increasing the knowledge of WOC role models in the STEM community also increases the number of WOC STEM degree holders and employees. To increase the knowledge of role models, a free, easily accessible mobile application was created to act as a teaching tool for young WOC. The target group was surveyed before and after providing access to the application to compare the way in which the students’ likelihood of entering the STEM field changed with the use of the learning tool. This present study is innovative as it utilizes modern technology to inspire and appeal to female youth of colour instead of short talks and/or stilted biographies.
MATERIALS & METHOD
Development of Mobile Application “Hidden Women”
The mobile application “Hidden Women” consists of various articles about WOC in STEM, including Antonia Novello and Flossie Wong-Staal among others. Every week eight new WOC were featured in the application alongside a 150-word description of their STEM career and contributions to the field. Additionally, a game was included to evaluate the users on their knowledge of the eight women featured. The application was made available to users on “Thunkable”, a no-code platform that allows users to build native mobile applications for any operating system (Thunkable, 2022). The application’s functionality was tested by a group of thirty individuals, aged 11 to 16.
Questionnaire
Two questionnaires were designed for this study to analyze the test subjects’ background knowledge regarding role models in STEM and to analyze the impact of the application on the test subjects. Questionnaire-1 compared the disparities in knowledge between notable male STEM employees (ME), and notable female STEM employees of color (FEC). It also identified the participants’ interest in entering the STEM field in the future.
Table 1: Questions to assess existing knowledge of notable individuals in STEM in Questionnaire-1
Table 2: Questions to assess the impact of the application on the test group in Questionnaire-2
Data Collection
Both questionnaires were implemented using “Google Forms”. The data was collected in early 2022 from ninety-six female students (aged 10-14) at Alexander Graham Bell Public School (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2022). These students had not been previously exposed to the application and, thus, the answers from Questionnaire-1 served as the control group. Questionnaires 1 and 2 were administered three weeks before and one week after the application was released, respectively to test knowledge retention. The participants were required to explore the application beforehand and confirm that they had “accessed the Hidden Women application and spent approximately 20 minutes each day exploring the various features of the application, over the course of a week” before answering Questionnaire-2. To minimize skewing of the data, the responders were required to use their individual school Google account to complete the questionnaires thus restricting the submission to one response per person. Responses were not allowed to be edited after they were submitted. To ensure anonymity, email addresses were not collected.
Table 3: Detailed report of responses collected from the first questionnaire.
Table 4: Detailed report of responses collected from the second questionnaire
RESULTS
As detailed in Table 3, twenty-seven percent of respondents (FEC0 – ME0: 83.3% - 56.3%) were able to identify a notable male in STEM, when they could not identify a single notable FEC in STEM. 15.6% of respondents (FEC0 – FE0: 83.3% - 67.7%) were able to identify a notable woman in STEM, when they could not identify a single notable woman of color in STEM. However, after being exposed to the application, 94.7% of responders were able to name at least one scientific WOC as a role model and 83.2% of respondents were more inclined to become STEM employees and/or STEM degree-holders, as detailed in Table 4.
Table 5: Compares the responses of Questionnaire-1 with the responses of Questionnaire-2
DISCUSSION
This data proves that there are severe disparities in the knowledge of notable male STEM employees and notable female STEM employees versus notable female STEM employees of color. However, when made aware of the contributions of notable female STEM employees of color through the application, respondents were able to recall more FEC in STEM and were more inclined to join the STEM field, as detailed in Table 5. The data gathered from this study confirms literature findings in this field and proves the hypothesis to be correct. The findings from this report are consistent with the data acquired by Frontiers in Psychology, where a role-model intervention, in which female volunteers working in STEM went into schools to talk to girls aged 12-16 about their careers, was evaluated (González-Pérez et al., 2020). In this study role-model intervention also had a significant positive effect on girls’ aspirations to enter the STEM field and a negative effect on gender stereotypes. These findings are also consistent with Microsoft’s Europe- and US-wide study of girls and young women where the number of girls interested in STEM almost doubled, and the interest in careers in these fields increased when they had a role model to inspire them (Microsoft 2018). However, in this study specifically, interest in the STEM field increased by over 80% as seen in Table 5. Next steps include increasing the quality of the application’s featured games and articles and expanding the test group to female youth of different ages in various parts of the country/globe to further empower young WOC to enter the STEM workforce. The questionnaires used in this study, detailed in Table 1 and Table 2, can be altered, and reused in the future by other studies focused on testing the impact of role-model intervention on minority communities, in hopes of encouraging them to pursue more challenging career fields.
CONCLUSION
This study examined the grave disparities in the knowledge of FEC in STEM versus FE in STEM versus ME in STEM in youth aged 10-14. This project then explored how increasing the knowledge of FEC role models in the STEM community can also increase the number of FEC in STEM. To increase the knowledge of role models, a mobile application was created to act as a teaching tool for young girls/women of color. The target group was surveyed before and after the use of this application to compare the gaps in their knowledge. The hypothesis formed during the study was proven to be correct. There were serious discrepancies in the knowledge of notable male STEM employees and notable female STEM employees versus notable female STEM employees of color. However, when made aware of the contributions of notable female STEM employees of color through the course of this study, volunteers were able to recall more WOC role models and were more inclined to pursue a career in STEM.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Norin Francis, Samantha Aukstakalnis, and Robin Fleming for their continued guidance and support throughout this project.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tharunika Gnaneshan is a grade 11 Gifted student at Pickering High School. She holds a keen interest in the fields of computer science and medicine as evidenced by her positions as the vice-president of the MEDLIFE chapter and the Communications Manager of the HOSA chapter at her school. Outside of school, she founded a local code club for youth aged 9-12 in Durham and volunteers her time with the Canadian Cancer Society as well as Ajax Family Eye Care. She is also a competitive dancer, pianist, swimmer and lifeguard. In the last few years, she has been recognized by Youth Science Canada, the University of Toronto, the University of Waterloo, Western University and Technovation Canada for her many accomplishments.