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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. STEM Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1537040
This article is part of the Research Topic Reshaping STEM Education: Strategies for Curriculum Decolonization and Institutional Transformation View all 17 articles
A critical examination of the underlying causes of the gender gap in STEM and the influence of computational thinking projects applied in secondary school on STEM Higher Education
Provisionally accepted
Sofía González-Gallego 1*
Mariana Hernández-Pérez 2
J. Alexis Alonso-Sánchez 3
Pedro Manuel Hernández-Castellano 2
Eduardo Gregorio Quevedo-Gutiérrez 4*- 1 Programa de Doctorado de Educación, Universidad de La Laguna, San Cristobal de La Laguna, Spain
- 2 Departament of Mechanical Engineering, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
- 3 Department of Physical Education, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
- 4 Institute for Applied Microelectronics, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
Students' interest in studying STEM disciplines in Higher Education has decreased over the past decades, especially among women, who have traditionally gravitated toward careers related to social sciences, education, or health-sectors more commonly associated with caregiving. To counteract this trend and prepare students for a society where STEM skills are increasingly valued and in demand, many countries have implemented educational policies that promote these skills through the development of computational thinking. Spain has joined these efforts, and the recent LOMLOE educational law includes computational thinking as a key competence to be developed, encouraging and promoting projects. However, these initiatives do not follow a unified structure but are instead adapted to the technologies and projects most accessible to students and the capacities of each educational center. This study aims to highlight the gender gap in interest toward STEM careers based on a sample of students from the Canary Islands, analyzing the factors contributing to this disparity. Additionally, it explores the role of computational thinking projects in secondary education, evaluating whether they might influence students' interests and, consequently, help reduce the gender gap in STEM vocations and increase students' interest in pursuing STEM Higher Education studies
Keywords: gender gap, Computational thinking, Secondary education, STEM vocations, Female stereotypes, STEM higher education, Educational Robotics, female references
Received: 29 Nov 2024; Accepted: 03 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 González-Gallego, Hernández-Pérez, Alonso-Sánchez, Hernández-Castellano and Quevedo-Gutiérrez. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Sofía González-Gallego, Programa de Doctorado de Educación, Universidad de La Laguna, San Cristobal de La Laguna, Spain
Eduardo Gregorio Quevedo-Gutiérrez, Institute for Applied Microelectronics, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, E35017, Spain
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