Title: Combined Predictive Power of Female Gender Stereotypes and Parental Influence on Female Students' Engagement in Vocational Training at Nakivale Vocational Training Centre, Isingiro District, Uganda
Authors: Ainomugisha Joshua
Dr. Imelda Kemeza (PhD)
Dr. Irene Aheisibwe (PhD)
Volume: 10
Issue: 8
Pages: 312-323
Publication Date: 2026/08/28
Abstract:
Female participation in Technical and Vocational Education and Training in Uganda remains low, and at Nakivale Vocational Training Centre female enrolment has averaged between 12 and 14 per cent since 2012. Female gender stereotypes and parental influence are each widely implicated in this disparity, but they are ordinarily examined in isolation, and few studies have quantified their joint explanatory contribution within a single predictive model, particularly in refugee settlement contexts. This study assessed the combined predictive power of female gender stereotypes and parental influence on female students' engagement in vocational training at Nakivale Vocational Training Centre. The study formed the quantitative strand of a convergent parallel mixed-methods design grounded in the pragmatic paradigm. A sample of 244 female students was drawn from a population of 665 using stratified random sampling by course of study, with proportional allocation and simple random selection within strata, the sample size being determined from the Krejcie and Morgan (1970) table at a 95 per cent confidence level and 5 per cent margin of error. Data were collected using a self-administered semi-structured questionnaire comprising 35 items and incorporating the Gender Stereotype Survey and the Parental Career-related Behaviour Questionnaire, both measured on five-point Likert scales. Content validity was established through expert review, yielding a Content Validity Index above 0.70; pilot testing with 24 respondents across five refugee vocational centres returned Cronbach's alpha coefficients between 0.70 and 0.90. Data were analysed in SPSS version 28 using descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, Pearson correlation and multiple linear regression. All 244 sampled respondents completed the questionnaire, yielding a 100 per cent response rate. The combined scale measuring female gender stereotypes and parental influence returned a Cronbach's alpha of 0.87. Descriptive results indicated that parents were widely perceived to regard certain vocational fields as more appropriate for females (M = 4.22, SD = 0.71) and that gender had affected career guidance (M = 4.10, SD = 0.73), while parental support remained strong (M = 4.26, SD = 0.80) alongside persisting traditional expectations (M = 4.13, SD = 0.71). Substantially higher standard deviations on items concerning encouragement into male-dominated fields (SD = 1.25) and gender-based discouragement (SD = 1.35) indicated pronounced heterogeneity in parental ideology. Pearson correlation established a strong positive association between female gender stereotypes and engagement outcomes (r = 0.61, p < 0.01) and between parental influence and engagement (r = 0.644, p < 0.01). Multiple linear regression indicated that gender stereotypes (? = 0.48, t = 6.72, p < 0.001) and parental influence (? = 0.36, t = 4.91, p < 0.001) jointly explained 52 per cent of the variance in engagement (Rē = 0.52). In the full coefficient model, however, none of the individual predictors attained significance - gender stereotypes (? = .001, p = .986), parental influence on engagement (? = .024, p = .712) and parental career behaviour (? = .036, p = .580) - with confidence intervals crossing zero throughout. The study concludes that female gender stereotypes and parental influence together account for a substantial and statistically meaningful proportion of the variance in female students' engagement, but that neither operates as an independent direct predictor once shared variance is controlled, indicating overlap between the constructs and the likelihood that parental influence acts through indirect pathways such as motivation, self-efficacy and resilience. It recommends gender-sensitisation programming, structured parental engagement, and integrated institutional and community interventions, together with the specification of more comprehensive predictive models incorporating institutional, peer and psychosocial variables.