Abstract
There are many hypotheses regarding factors that may encourage female students to pursue careers in the physical sciences. Using multivariate matching methods on national data drawn from the Persistence Research in Science and Engineering (PRiSE) project ($n=7505$), we test the following five commonly held beliefs regarding what factors might impact females' physical science career interest: (i) having a single-sex physics class, (ii) having a female physics teacher, (iii) having female scientist guest speakers in physics class, (iv) discussing the work of female scientists in physics class, and (v) discussing the underrepresentation of women in physics class. The effect of these experiences on physical science career interest is compared for female students who are matched on several factors, including prior science interests, prior mathematics interests, grades in science, grades in mathematics, and years of enrollment in high school physics. No significant effects are found for single-sex classes, female teachers, female scientist guest speakers, and discussing the work of female scientists. However, discussions about women's underrepresentation have a significant positive effect.
Highlights
Driven by equity concerns and worries about insufficient capacity building in science, female representation in the physical sciences continues to be a topic of high priority among scientists, educators, policy makers, and education researchers
This study draws on data from the Persistence Research in Science and Engineering (PRiSE) project, which surveyed a national sample of college English students (7505 students at 40 institutions) in order to capture data from a wide range of students, including both those who were interested in the physical sciences and those who were not
A strongly significant effect was obtained for discussion of the underrepresentation of women (B1⁄40:44, t 1⁄4 2:92, p < 0:01, d 1⁄4 0:27), with female students who were exposed to such discussions being significantly more likely to choose a physical science career than those who were not, by nearly half of a point on the 6-point scale
Summary
Driven by equity concerns and worries about insufficient capacity building in science, female representation in the physical sciences continues to be a topic of high priority among scientists, educators, policy makers, and education researchers. The most common reasons cited include unsupportive classroom environments and widely held characterizations of the physical sciences as ‘‘masculine’’ enterprises [2,3]. In response to these issues, it has been hypothesized that single-sex physics classes, female role models in physics, and a better understanding of issues relevant for women in physics may provide solutions [4,5]. This note of caution resonates strongly with national research from New Zealand that has found that single-sex experiences have no effect on physics performance outcomes after accounting for prior
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