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Exploring serial mediation effects of gender roles and motivation on gendered educational choice
Published: 18.07.2025.

Ivana Pikić Jugović, PhD and Dora Petrović, PhD are the authors of the scientific paper Exploring Serial Mediation Effects of Gender Roles and Motivation on Gendered Educational Choice. The paper is published in the “Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering“, which is indexed in Scopus (2024) in Q1 (Engineering (miscellaneous) Gender Studies).
Abstract: The aim of our study, grounded in the situated expectancy-value theory, was to examine the mediating role of gender roles and motivational beliefs in physics in the relationship between gender and the intention to choose a university course in technical sciences. A total of 625 secondary school students from Zagreb, Croatia, participated in the study. Gender Roles in Adolescence Scale contained Femininity and Masculinity scales, and Motivational beliefs in physics were measured with Expectancy of success and Utility value scales. Our findings show that the relationship between gender and the intention to choose a technical sciences course is serially mediated by gender roles and motivational beliefs. Young men were more likely to choose a technical sciences course than young women. This was explained with young men’s higher masculinity and lower femininity scores (compared to young women), which led to their higher expectancy of success and utility value in physics, finally resulting in young men’s higher chance to choose a technical sciences course. Policy implications of our findings point to the necessity of challenging traditional gender roles in educational systems and raising awareness of their impact on gender division in higher education courses and occupations.
The paper is available at the link.