"Participants were 333 introductory psychology students (193 women) who participated for
partial course credit, and 27 paid participants (14 women) from STEM classes. The majority (86.94%)
were of European American descent. The median age was 19 years, ranging from 18 to 43. "
"For each of the core careers, participants rated how much the career fulfills agentic goals (“power, achievement, and seeking new experiences or excitement”) and
communal goals (“intimacy, affiliation, and altruism”; definitions from Pohlmann, 2001). Participants rated goals according to “how important each of the following kinds of goals is to you personally."
I really found this study not very compelling as jumping from point A to conclusion B. It seems more than they've proved that women from the small subset in this study prefer more "communal goals" and the STEM careers are not perceived that way.
I can say as a women in STEM, I sort of choose tech on a whim. I came to see coding as a tool for many of the creative aspirations I had. If anything, I think some of the STEM career paths are poorly understood and marketed to women. Though I probably would have answered my questions about my career decisions in one way when I started college, it would have been different by the end of it. And after understanding what to expect out of a career, being years into my career, I would answer what's important to me in yet another way. So I really question this study.
Let me just say this is why "show me the study" is never a productive line of debate.
If someone agrees with the point the study seems to support, they say, "Hah! Studies!" and call anyone who disagrees "anti-science".
But if someone disagrees with the point, they pull up the study, pick out some section of it where any type of subjective judgment call was made (usually the details of the sample, because that's the most clearly subjective thing, making it the easiest thing to criticize), and say "There are real problems with this study, how about a real study? [that is, a study that agrees with my point]". Also popular is "Yes, but this author is affiliated with former employer x, y, or z".
This is true of all sides, all the time. Very rarely do you see a study actually impact anyone's opinion about an important topic. It is usually only the impression that more studies support a specific position (that is, "the consensus", aka social pressure to appear studious and informed, which affects academics as much or more than it affects non-academics), that does it.
> But if someone disagrees with the point, they pull up the study, pick out some section of it where any type of subjective judgment call was made (usually the details of the sample, because that's the most clearly subjective thing, making it the easiest thing to criticize), and say "There are real problems with this study, how about a real study? [that is, a study that agrees with my point]". Also popular is "Yes, but this author is affiliated with former employer x, y, or z".
This is virtually impossible to do effectively unless one is an expert in the field. Studies that have been published by reputable journals have gone through a rigorous peer review process. A layperson criticizing such a study is highly unlikely to discover any valid points that have escaped the experts.
Given the power we see in 100+ study meta-analysis in medicine, I think we have to move towards a model where research grants in other fields (psych, sociology, etc.) are jointly awarded to multiple independent groups to jumpstart the meta-analysis for a given new topic from the outset. How to keep the "independent" groups from colluding will be a challenge unfortunately. As will funding for the extra replications. For the reasons you cite, single, stand-alone studies are almost useless these days.
"Participants were 333 introductory psychology students (193 women) who participated for partial course credit, and 27 paid participants (14 women) from STEM classes. The majority (86.94%) were of European American descent. The median age was 19 years, ranging from 18 to 43. "
"For each of the core careers, participants rated how much the career fulfills agentic goals (“power, achievement, and seeking new experiences or excitement”) and communal goals (“intimacy, affiliation, and altruism”; definitions from Pohlmann, 2001). Participants rated goals according to “how important each of the following kinds of goals is to you personally."
I really found this study not very compelling as jumping from point A to conclusion B. It seems more than they've proved that women from the small subset in this study prefer more "communal goals" and the STEM careers are not perceived that way.
I can say as a women in STEM, I sort of choose tech on a whim. I came to see coding as a tool for many of the creative aspirations I had. If anything, I think some of the STEM career paths are poorly understood and marketed to women. Though I probably would have answered my questions about my career decisions in one way when I started college, it would have been different by the end of it. And after understanding what to expect out of a career, being years into my career, I would answer what's important to me in yet another way. So I really question this study.