How Counselors' Engineering Knowledge and Attitudes Influence Their Engineering Career Guidance for Girls

This study explores the impact of counselors' engineering misconceptions, knowledge, and attitudes on their career guidance for girls. Furthermore, it aims to investigate the moderating effect of gender stereotypes on these variables. The participants were 137 Taiwanese school counselors and psychologists. Data were collected through self-developed questionnaires. Rasch analysis was employed to validate the questionnaire data, followed by hierarchical linear regression analysis in SPSS to examine the relationships between variables. Results indicate that counselors' misconceptions about engineering did not significantly affect their guidance efficacy or the frequency of guiding girls towards engineering careers. However, counselors' knowledge and positive attitudes towards engineering significantly predicted guidance efficacy, while only knowledge positively predicted the frequency of guiding girls into engineering. Gender stereotypes about engineering did not moderate these relationships.