Women in STEM and Human Information Behavior: Implications for LIS Educators

IntroductionAccording to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields are expected to add 2.7 million new jobs by 2018. These jobs offer enormous prospects for those who are prepared and a huge missed opportunity for those who are not. Women are underrepresented in the STEM fields and with the expected growth in jobs in this field recruiting women would be beneficial. According to Leary (2012) the need to improve STEM education in the U.S. became a priority for government, business and academe following the release in 2005 of a congressionally mandated report, "Rising above the Gathering Storm." In a follow-up report released in 2010, the Academy and its companion National Academy of Engineering and Institute of Medicine said underrepresented groups (racial/ethnic minorities and women) represent a largely untapped pool of American talent that could help fill the coming wave of STEM jobs. Governmentsponsored programs, such as those provided by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and U.S. Department of Education TRIO Programs (for example, the Ronald E. McNair PostBaccalaureate Achievement Program, which includes a faculty-supervised research component) support undergraduate research experiences (UGREs).Women in STEMThe small numbers of women in the STEM fields has been a topic of national discussion in the USA for many years. Many scholars support the importance of mentoring in increasing participation of women and minorities in STEM fields. According to Milgram (2011) women and girls need to see female role models in the workplace that look like themover and over and over again. They need to receive the message that women can work in STEM careers and be successful and fulfilled in their work. The best example of an outreach campaign to recruit women to male-dominated jobs is "Rosie the Riveter," developed by the U.S. government and based on a real female factory worker, Rose Monroe (Milgram, 2011). Another important element of modem outreach campaigns is conveying the message that women in STEM careers can balance their work demands with their personal and family life (Milgram, 2011).However, the number of women in STEM is still not consistent with the number of women in college in the USA. College-age women have been reported to be less likely to major in STEM fields and to be retained at a lower rate than are men (Freeman, 2004; Planty et al., 2009). According to King (2010) while women comprise approximately 57 percent of college students nationwide their presence in higher education has yet to translate consistently to representation in the STEM fields. Whereas women are attending college at unprecedented rates and constitute more than half of university and college populations, they continue to be underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields (Planty, Kena, & Hannes, 2009).Human Information Behavior in the STEM FieldsWilson (2000) defines human information behavior as the "totality of human behavior in relation to sources and channels of information, including both active and passive information seeking, and information use" (p. 49). Typically, information seekers are more likely to obtain information from sources that they are familiar with rather than to seek other avenues which was noted in work done by March and Simon (1958) and Allen (1977). Google, and other Internet search engines, have also changed the way that information seekers search for information and this is true even in the STEM fields. In a study on information seeking by academic scientists Niu and Hemminger (2011) surveyed scientists from five research universities in the United States and found that some searchers preferred the Google interface than that of their library. However, searchers who preferred Google tended to be less confident that they were finding the information they needed and research staff and adjunct faculty were found to use Google more than senior professors (Nui and Hemminger, 2011). …