Abstract
We describe a study of the impact of exam question structure on the performance of first year Natural Sciences physics undergraduates from the University of Cambridge. The results show conclusively that a student’s performance improves when questions are scaffolded compared with university style questions. In a group of 77 female students we observe that the average exam mark increases by 13.4% for scaffolded questions, which corresponds to a 4.9 standard deviation effect. The equivalent observation for 236 male students is 9% (5.5 standard deviations). We also observe a correlation between exam performance and A2-level marks for UK students, and that students who receive their school education overseas, in a mixed gender environment, or at an independent school are more likely to receive a first class mark in the exam. These results suggest a mis-match between the problem-solving skills and assessment procedures between school and first year university and will provide key input into the future teaching and assessment of first year undergraduate physics students.
Highlights
The Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge is committed to the advancement of women in science
That providing scaffolding within physics problem solving exam questions increases a students mark and that this increase will be greater for female students, we constructed a mock exam using questions taken from previous first year physics papers
As part of our Department of Physics activities directed towards gender equality, we have investigated the impact of exam question style on the performance of first year Natural Sciences students who take physics as one of their options
Summary
In the highest undergraduate degree classification (first class mark), have been documented by many studies over many decades, and across many institutions (Rudd 1984, McNabb et al 2002, Richardson and Woodley 2003, Simonite 2005, Barrow et al 2009). The most compelling hypothesis is the dependence on the entry qualifications of the cohort, in particular that female cohorts have a narrower distribution of entry qualifications with a mean lower than that of their male counterparts This gender specific pre-entry distribution is consistent with observations in these previous studies that proportionally fewer women get firsts but proportionally fewer women get thirds and below. This gender specific pre-entry distribution is consistent with observations in these previous studies that proportionally fewer women get firsts but proportionally fewer women get thirds and below. Rudd (1984) comments that from the entry qualifications the female cohort has ‘fewer geniuses but fewer dunces’
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