Modelling the Causal Pathways Between School Science Environment, Self-Efficacy, and STEM Persistence Among Female Secondary Students in North West Nigeria

This study modelled the causal pathways connecting school science environment, academic self-efficacy, and STEM persistence intentions among female secondary students in North West Nigeria. The low rate of female STEM persistence in the North West represents a compound challenge involving institutional, psychological, and sociocultural variables whose interrelationships have not been examined through a robust causal modelling approach. A large-scale cross-sectional survey design was used. A stratified sample of 1,200 female SS2 and SS3 students from Kano, Katsina, Kaduna, Zamfara, Sokoto, Kebbi, and Jigawa States participated. Validated measures of school science environment quality, science self-efficacy, gender role attitudes, family support, and STEM persistence intention were administered. Reliability coefficients exceeded 0.80 across all scales. Structural Equation Modelling with multi-group analysis was used. The final model demonstrated good fit (CFI 0.93, RMSEA 0.051) and revealed that self-efficacy fully mediated the relationship between school science environment and STEM persistence. Gender role attitudes moderated the self-efficacy-persistence pathway. The study provides a regionally calibrated evidence base for female STEM persistence policy in North West Nigeria. Keywords: causal modelling, STEM persistence, female students, North West Nigeria, self-efficacy.