Abstract—In mainland China, female underrepresentation in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) exists in schools and workplaces. Previous research has focused on mainstream reasons for females’ underrepresentation compared to males. Many studies have used quantitative methods to examine one or two correlated factors with women’s STEM aspirations. However, only a few studies used qualitative research to explore all-sided reasons and their multifactor effects. This study focused on the life stories of mainland key high school alumnae who successfully pursued STEM majors or careers after experiencing academic failure in mathematics. It aims to explore the nature and complexity of STEM aspiration development for this group of females. The finding shows that the STEM learning experiences of three female alumnae before adversity, their self-efficacy and outcome expectations after adversity, and other contextual factors have influenced women’s interests, goals, choices, and learning behaviors in pursuing STEM. However, there are differences in how these factors are influenced across the three stories. Based on the participants’ stories and Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), a progressive flowchart was constructed to represent the interplay among the major factors in STEM aspiration. The research provides insights into how mainland China’s institutions, teachers, and parents can guide female students to pursue STEM while inevitably having questions like small sample size and limited access to participants.  
 

Keywords—Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) aspiration, women in STEM, high school alumnae, math underachievement, mainland China

Cite: Ye Wu, "STEM Aspiration: Stories of Key High School Alumnae with Math Underachievement Experience," International Journal of Learning and Teaching, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 7-15, 2025.

Copyright © 2025 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).