Students’ interest in physics by gender, school type and programme of study

Abstract

Studies in Ghana and globally have reported a dwindling in students’ interest in pursuing higher degrees in physics and physics related programmes. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate students’ interest in physics according to gender, type of school and programme of study. The overarching design employed in this study was the cross-sectional survey design. The population of this study was made up of all Form three students who offered physics as elective in public senior high schools (SHS) in the Eastern region of Ghana. In this survey, a questionnaire-Srudents’ Interest in Physics (SIP), was used to gather information about students’ interest in physics from 415 physics students, comprising of 161 females and 254 males sampled randomly from 14 schools (comprising Boys only, Girls only and Mixed Sex Schools) in the Eastern region of Ghana, about their interest in physics. The sample was taken from different gender, school type (Boys only, Girls only and Mixed) and programmes (General science, Agricultural science and Technical) using a multistage sampling technique. It was found that students’ interest in physics was generally moderate. Male students were found to be more interested in physics than female students. Similarly, Technical students were more interested in physics than General Science students whereas students from Boys’ only schools were found to have higher interest in physics than students from mixed and Girls schools