A Study Of Gender Imbalance In Public Relations Training At Daystar University

ABSTRACT

Public relation (PR) is a field dominated by females in both the industry and academic programs. Whilst scholars have expressed concerns on the implications of the gender imbalance on the industry, there is still inadequacy of literature on the reasons responsible for the occurrence especially the causes for the low number of male students in the PR training. Based on the reviewed literature for this research, most of the existing studies on gender in PR have greatly focused on the issues affecting female practitioners and advocated for the need to address such concerns. To fill this gap, the study sought to find out the reasons for the low number of male students in PR training at DU. The study employed descriptive research design and used questionnaires and interviews as the communication medium between the research objectives and the study respondents. Both probability and non-probability sampling methods were used to select the respondents Based on the constructs of the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), the study established that personal interests, self-efficacy beliefs, perceptions, gender stereotypes and outcome expectations were major determinants of career choice among communication students. The findings revealed that male students chose other concentrations over PR due to their lack of interest in PR and the perception that females are better communicators. Further, the findings indicated that male respondents had low self-efficacy beliefs leading to their lack of confidence in their ability to perform well in PR hence the low number of male students in PR training at DU. The researcher recommends that in order to bridge the gender gap in PR training career counselors and PR educators at Du should mentor and guide male students in selecting their communication majors and promote PR as a career that suits both genders.