Presenters: Amanda Aamodt, College of Life Sciences, Biology
Authors: Barrett AA, Smith C, Bailey EG
Faculty Advisor: Elizabeth Bailey, College of Life Sciences, Biology
Institution: Brigham Young University
Choosing an undergraduate major is an important decision as it can strongly influence career paths and lifetime earnings. Previous studies have found that factors leading to undergraduate major decision include high school and other experiences, family and teachers, and the student’s personal interests. Furthermore, major choice varies dramatically by gender. Women are less likely to choose science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors compared to men, and more likely to change majors after choosing a STEM major. Studies in some populations suggest that women may care less than their male peers about career outcomes related to money and that men and women differ in their interests. However, more research on major choice are needed in different populations, especially religious and conservative populations. We recruited ten women and nine men from courses required for our bioinformatics major. Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary field that combines methods of computer science (a STEM field with fewer women) to understand and solve problems in biology (a STEM field with large female representation). By recruiting from these courses, we had a diverse pool of students from various STEM majors, some more biological and some more technology focused. We are interested in what draws women to or away from their majors and contrast this with men’s experiences. Thus, we conducted semi-structured interviews and asked the participants about their initial undergraduate major decision, any changes they made to their major, and factors that led to these decisions. We are analyzing the interviews using inductive thematic analysis to discover new ideas about the different experiences of men and women in a conservative, religious population. Preliminary results show that while many factors impact a student’s decision to stay or leave STEM, several factors are particularly influential: sense of belonging, gender, and past experiences appear to have a large impact.