Abstract
Our previous research Kost et al., Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 5, 010101 2009 examined gender differences in the first-semester, introductory physics class at the University of Colorado at Boulder. We found that: 1 there were gender differences in several aspects of the course, including conceptual survey performance, 2 these differences persisted despite the use of interactive engagement techniques, and 3 the post-test gender differences could largely be attributed to differences in males’ and females’ prior physics and math performance and their incoming attitudes and beliefs. In the current study, we continue to characterize gender differences in our physics courses by examining the second-semester, electricity and magnetism course. We analyze three factors: student retention from Physics 1 to Physics 2, student performance, and students’ attitudes and beliefs about physics, and find gender differences in all three of these areas. Specifically, females are less likely to stay in the physics major than males. Despite males and females performing about equally on the conceptual pretest, we find that females score about 6 percentage points lower than males on the conceptual post-test. In most semesters, females outperform males on homework and participation, and males outperform females on exams, resulting in course grades of males and females that are not significantly different. In terms of students’ attitudes and beliefs, we find that both males and females shift toward less expertlike beliefs over the course of Physics 2. Shifts are statistically equal for all categories except for the Personal Interest category, where females have more negative shifts than males. A large fraction of the conceptual post-test gender gap up to 60% can be accounted for by differences in males’ and females’ prior physics and math performance and their pre-Physics 2 attitudes and beliefs. Taken together, the results of this study suggest that it is an accumulation of small gender differences over time that may be responsible for the large differences that we observe in physics participation of males and females.
Highlights
AND BACKGROUNDAccording to a recent National Science Foundation2009͒ report1͔, females earn over half55%͒ of the bachelor’s degrees and just under half47%͒ of the doctoral degrees awarded in the sciences
Of the students who took Physics 2, about 20% of both the males and females did not take Physics 1. Looking both at the number of students who drop out of the introductory sequence and who join in the sequence after Physics 1, we find no gender differences
In the remaining three semesters, where there is a statistically significant pretest difference, the gender gap is only between 2.6% and 3.6%. This is much smaller than the gender gaps that we observe on the FMCE pretest at the beginning of Physics 1, which are between 6% and 14% ͑about 10% on average3͔
Summary
AND BACKGROUNDAccording to a recent National Science Foundation2009͒ report1͔, females earn over half55%͒ of the bachelor’s degrees and just under half47%͒ of the doctoral degrees awarded in the sciences. Physics has one of the lowest representations of females, and is comparable to representation in computer science and engineeringboth 19% female These national trends are reflected at the University of Colorado at BoulderCU, where we see a similar low fraction of females earning bachelor’s degrees in physics. This under-representation of females in physics continues to be a cause for concern. In our previous work2,3͔, we began to address this disparity in participation by examining gender differences in the firstsemester, calculus-based mechanics course. This course serves as an introduction to physics and is a critical first step towards pursuing a physics degree. In prior studies we found that in our first-semester, introductory mechanics course:
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