Gender Differences and Professional Identities in Health and Engineering

Abstract The objective of this study was to compare the professional identity perceptions among undergraduate students enrolled in predominantly female and male courses. The research method is cross-sectional and the sample consisted of 502 undergraduate students in the fields of health and engineering. A questionnaire with the Scale of Professional Self and Hetero-Perception (EAHP) was used to collect the data and descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, and structural equations modeling were used as analysis techniques. According to the students from the two areas, the dimensions that best describe their professions are dynamism; technicity; effort; and ethics, while in the health field, the dimension that received the lowest average score was recognition, indicating that the professionals working in this field resent the lack of respect, admiration, and prestige in society, despite perceiving themselves as honest, honored, productive, and hardworking. Also, the average hetero-perception scores were lower for the health students and the difference between self and hetero-perception was less significant among the engineering students. The results confirm that the professional identities include gender-related attributes, leading to the conclusion that health professions remain vulnerable to gender domination relations.

摘要 本研究旨在对比就读于以女性为主和以男性为主修课程的本科生的职业认同认知。本研究采用横断面研究方法，样本涵盖健康与工程领域的502名本科生。研究使用《职业自我与他人感知量表（Scale of Professional Self and Hetero-Perception, EAHP）》收集数据，并采用描述性统计、探索性因子分析以及结构方程模型作为分析技术。根据两个领域学生的反馈，最能描述其职业特质的维度为活力、专业技术性、履职付出与职业伦理。而就健康领域而言，得分最低的维度为社会认可，表明该领域从业者尽管自认诚实、受敬重、富有生产力且勤勉肯干，但普遍不满社会对其缺乏尊重、认可与声望。此外，健康专业学生的他人感知平均得分更低，且工程专业学生的自我感知与他人感知之间的差异相对更小。研究结果证实，职业认同包含与性别相关的属性，由此得出结论：健康类职业仍易受性别支配关系的影响。