According to Bandura’s social cognitive theory, a student’s self-efficacy influences his or her academic and career decisions, and his or her performance outcomes; as such, a student’s self-efficacy changes with time in response to the student’s experiences. Self-efficacy may also vary by academic domain. Differences in STEM self-efficacy have often been reported between men and women. The purpose of this study is to explore the evolution of domain-specific STEM self-efficacy in students in gateway physics and mathematics courses and how academic feedback influences the evolution of these differences with time. Further, this study explored whether gender differences in self-efficacy are consistent across STEM domains and how these differences change in response to academic feedback. Self-efficacy in multiple academic domains (current mathematics/science class, other STEM classes, and intended profession) was assessed at multiple time points with subscales adapted from the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire. Linear mixed effects modeling was used to understand how academic feedback provided by test scores influenced changes in self-efficacy. Students in all classes expressed different levels of self-efficacy toward different domains with the lowest self-efficacy toward their current class and the highest toward their intended profession. Only the current math/science class self-efficacy of men and women differed significantly, with women expressing lower self-efficacy. The differences in current class self-efficacy were evident very early in the class before substantive class feedback was received. The evolution of self-efficacy within the class and between classes was the same for men and women.

中文翻译：

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使用社会认知理论框架来统计理工科学生STEM自我效能发展轨迹中的性别差异

根据班杜拉（Bandura）的社会认知理论，学生的自我效能感会影响他或她的学业和职业决策，以及他或她的绩效结果；这样，学生的自我效能会随着时间的变化而变化。自我效能也可能因学术领域而异。经常有报道男女之间在STEM自我效能方面存在差异。这项研究的目的是探讨网关物理和数学课程的学生特定领域STEM自我效能的演变，以及学术反馈如何影响这些差异随时间的演变。此外，本研究探讨了STEM领域中自我效能方面的性别差异是否一致，以及这些差异如何随学术反馈而变化。在多个时间点，采用根据《动机调查问卷》改编的分量表，评估了多个学术领域（当前的数学/科学课，其他STEM课程和目标职业）的自我效能。使用线性混合效应建模来了解测试分数提供的学术反馈如何影响自我效能的变化。所有班级的学生对不同领域的自我效能水平都不同，对当前班级的自我效能最低，对所从事职业的自我效能最高。目前，只有男性和女性在数学/科学课上的自我效能有显着差异，女性的自我效能较低。当前班级自我效能的差异在获得实质性班级反馈之前很早就已经在班级中明显体现出来。