With the advent of the fourth industrial revolution, it has become an urgent matter that many of women leave STEM pipeline after undergraduate education in Korea. One of the major causes of such phenomenon is female students’ negative experiences with the education in STEM majors at college, which consequently decrease their career aspiration in the fields of STEM. Thus, this study intended to bring renewed attention to High Impact Practices (HIPs) which are known to be effective to improve college students’ learning experiences and student outcomes (Chickering & Gamson, 1987; Kuh & Vesper, 1997). More importantly, this study shed light on gender differential effects of HIPs, considering characteristics of women’s learning such as learning by interaction with others, by making contextual relationship with learning materials, and by receiving teacher’s support and acknowledgement of their talents (Belenky et al., 1986). This study also aimed to examine the effects of HIPs on career aspiration of students in STEM majors, using the theoretical lens of Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT).

To test effects of these HIPs, this study used the sample included 2,101 third and fourth year undergraduate students majoring in STEM at 38 universities. The sample was collected from the National Survey on College Student Experiences and Learning Outcomes conducted by the Center for Global Higher Education in Korea from April to June 30th, 2012. Reflecting the nested structure of the data, hierarchical linear model (HLM) was used for the analysis. Furthermore, to test differing effects of HIPs on both genders, the analysis were conducted separate by gender.

Summarizing the results, in terms of the domain of learning by peer interaction, out of class interaction positively influenced career aspiration of both genders but had a bigger influence on female students. Discussion was only effective to female students, and team project did not show significant influence. Second, content relevance was effective for both genders, yet more influential to women. Third, in the domain of faculty support, only faculty mentorship was positively linked to career aspiration of both genders, but it had greater influence on male students. In addition, academic self-efficacy, intermediate outcome in the study, was found to have significant influence on students’ career aspiration for both genders. Institutional characteristics of universities were found to influence students’ career aspiration. In particular, the degree to which the differences between universities contribute student’s career aspiration was greater to female students than male. Institutional factors that had positive influence on women’s career aspiration were location (non-metropolitan), type (private), mission (teaching-oriented), and graduate-undergraduate ratio. Other personal and college experience variables that are notable to mention are negative association between female students’ first generation status and career aspiration; and negative association between male students’ year in college and their career aspiration. These findings suggest that HIPs can have gender differential effects on developing career aspiration of students in STEM majors. Thus, when implementing HIPs, gender-conscious perspective is required particularly in STEM majors. Based on the findings, this study also provides implications on roles of faculty members in STEM majors and higher education institutions, and policies on fostering women in STEM.

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