Imagine you are sitting in a classroom full of 200 students in an introductory physics course at a large university. Looking around the room, you don’t think you can relate to your classmates, and you are not sure if you will be able to succeed in the course. During discussions with your classmates, sometimes it feels as though they aren’t paying attention to your ideas, and you begin to further doubt your ability to succeed. As the course progresses, it is difficult for you to identify how the subject matter is relevant to your life and future career. It seems like in this particular course, either you “get” the topics or you don’t—and you definitely don’t “get it”. After a few weeks, you think that perhaps you just don’t belong, decide to keep quiet in class discussions, and seriously consider dropping the course.
This experience appears to be quite common for female students in STEM courses—especially introductory physics courses. The experience illustrates that students’ motivation can play a large part in the extent to which they engage in physics courses. While there have been some efforts to improve the experiences of female students and make physics courses more inclusive, the reasons for the frequently documented low enrollment percentages and the under-performance of women in physics are still not fully understood. Researchers are now examining the relationship between students’ motivation and learning and, in particular, the motivation of female students.
I’m sure I can’t
Motivation has several facets, and the existence and size of gender differences vary by the facet. One primary facet of motivation involves the belief in one’s capability to be successful in a particular task, subject area, or course—also known as “self-efficacy”1. This perceived ability affects student performance above and beyond their actual knowledge and ability2,3. For example, if a female student is confident in her math problem solving ability this belief can be more predictive of her problem solving performance than her actual math understanding2,3. Unfortunately, female students demonstrate lower self-efficacy relative to male students beginning in middle school4.
In our study, we investigated students’ self-efficacy throughout two introductory college-level physics courses that spanned two semesters, one algebra-based and one-calculus based. We gave students surveys at three time points: the beginning of the first semester course, at the beginning of the second semester course, and at the end of the second semester course. They were asked to respond to questions on a scale of 1–4.
Students were asked to answer questions such as “If I study, I will do well on a physics test … ” on a scale of 1–4 with 1 being “NO!” and 4 being “YES!” We then compared female and male students’ responses to the survey questions. We found that at the beginning of both physics courses, females were more likely to disagree with statements such as the one above than males—females were sure they could not do well in the course. This gender difference in self-efficacy remained throughout the two-semester course sequence.
This stuff is (becoming) boring
Another aspect of motivation involves intrinsic interest in a particular subject. Intrinsic interest can entail enjoyment in doing a task or learning about a particular subject and is critical to students’ decisions to engage in learning the subject and pursue it further5. In fact, one of the reasons women choose not to pursue STEM degrees is because their career interests often focus on making a difference in people’s lives, and they do not view STEM fields as those in which they could help others6.
To examine students’ intrinsic interest in physics, we examined students’ responses to survey questions such as: “I want to know everything I can about physics …” on a scale of 1–4 with 1 being “NO!” and 4 being “YES!”. We found that in both physics courses, female students’ fascination with physics was much lower than males at the beginning of the first semester courses. Females’ interest in physics decreased even more relative to males’ throughout the two-semester course sequence.
Some people (like me) can’t learn this stuff
Intelligence mindset is also related to motivation. Intelligence mindset refers to whether intelligence is viewed as a fixed or innate trait that one is born with (e.g., IQ) or whether it is viewed as something that is malleable and can be improved through hard work and effective study strategies7. Studies show that girls who view math ability as a fixed trait have decreased motivation and interest in pursuing math careers7.
We investigated male and female students’ intelligence mindset by asking students to agree or disagree with survey questions such as “Only very few specially qualified people are capable of really understanding physics.” We found that at the beginning of the first semester calculus-based courses, females were more likely than males to agree with statements such as the one above. That is, females were more likely than males to think that physics intelligence is a fixed ability that cannot be changed. We also found that females’ intelligence mindset in physics tended to become even more “fixed” relative to males’ over the two semesters.
