Barriers Of Beliefs About Intelligence And Cognitive...

This literature review focuses on the available literature about the barriers for women going into engineering leading to the underrepresentation of women in engineering. â€Å"Only 8% of British engineers are women, the lowest proportion in Europe, and well behind Germany (15%), Sweden (25%) and top-performing Latvia (30%)† (Rankin, 2014). Over the last few years, women in engineering has become a major research topic, though a large majority of the research available focuses on STEM (Science, Engineering, Technology and Mathematics) as a whole. This review will mainly be focusing on the barriers of beliefs about intelligence and cognitive abilities, self-assessment, and discrimination by stereotyping. Most of the literature available on the†¦show more content†¦Dweck’s (2007) research of looking at â€Å"how students cope with confusion when they are learning brand new material†, confirms Kimura’s previous statement. â€Å"Confusion is a common occurrence in math and science, where, unlike verbal areas, new material often involves completely new skills, concepts, or conceptual systems† (Dweck, 2007). This research shows that â€Å"bright girls did not cope at all well with †¦ confusion† and â€Å"in fact, the higher the girl’s IQ, the worse she did† (Dweck, 2007). Also â€Å"many high-IQ girls were unable to learn the material after experiencing confusion†, but this â€Å"did not happen to boys†. It â€Å"only energized them†. This was striking as they â€Å"were working with fifth-grade students† where â€Å"there was not stigma attached to girls achievement yet† (Dweck, 2007). Barba ra Licht corroborated this, finding from her own research â€Å"that bright girls – who were at the top of the heap when things went well – were vulnerable to a loss of confidence and a loss in effectiveness when they ran into difficulty† (Dweck, 2007) Dweck (2007) argues that â€Å"it is possible that at least part of the emerging difference in math is a gender difference in coping with setbacks and confusion rather than a gender difference in math ability†. Dweck (2007) argues â€Å"that girls who believe that intellectual abilities are just gifts do not fare well in math, but those who think they are qualities that can be developed often do just fine.† Dweck argues â€Å"that not all bright