Despite adolescent girls' superior school achievement and high career aspirations, fewer women than men achieve career eminence. Understanding early influences on the development of gifted girls' career-related values and aspirations may help to explain this discrepancy in career outcomes. This article reports findings from a qualitative,…

Students' perceptions of their mathematics ability vary by gender and seem to influence science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degree choice. Related, students' perceptions during academic difficulty are increasingly studied in educational psychology, suggesting a link between such perceptions and task persistence. Despite…

The author examined changes in the educational and career goals of 66 young women who completed surveys in Grades 7 and 12. Participants identified desirable versus undesirable aspects of mathematics- and science-based careers to better understand the characteristics that do or do not attract women from these fields. Over time, participants'…

One hundred and thirty final year high school students were administered scales tapping optimism/pessimism, self-esteem, external career barriers, career decision-making self-efficacy, career focus and career indecision. It was hypothesised, first, that cognitive style optimism/pessimism) would predict both internal (self-esteem) and external…