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Previous research has drawn a distinction between mass perception and weight perception. This distinction is based on data showing that subjects' ability to judge the heaviness of an object is less acute under conditions of zero gravity. Following a discussion about the mass of an object and the gravitational and inertial effects of that mass is a proposal that this distinction between mass and weight perception is misleading. An experiment is reported that shows that the perceived heaviness of an object is a function of the magnitude of the external forces acting on that object rather than a function of the type of force, inertial or gravitational, acting on that object.

-Gender imbalance is a persistent issueacross Canadian engineering programs. Efforts have been made to increase the enrolment of undergraduate women in engineering, but reaching gender parity in engineering has been an elusive goal. This research examines program recruitment images and videos from 18 Canadian engineering university websites. Using content analysis and thematic coding of video transcriptions, we coded 440 unique images and 37 recruitment videos. We find that women students are overrepresented in images and in videos, at rates higher than we expect given their proportion within programs. We compare the presentation of women and men across several dimensions and identify key differences in women's representation in relevant settings, attire, and in the kinds of learning experiences they emphasize in videos. We conclude with suggestions for ways programs can present a more neutral portrayal of women in recruitment materials.

Gender imbalance exists in nearly everyundergraduate engineering department in Canada. Thereis evidence that subtle gendered wording may influenceperceptions of women’s fit in a field. In this study, weapplied a content analysis approach to evaluating thepresence of gendered words in engineeringundergraduate recruitment materials and compared theseresults to enrolment data and other factors for 18English-language Canadian engineering schools. To ourknowledge, this is the first evaluation of genderedwording in recruitment materials as a factor in theenrolment of women in engineering. We found that the useof feminine wording in recruitment materials has a weak,negative correlation with enrolment of women students,but a positive correlation with percentage of femalefaculty members. Our data point to the need for furtheranalysis of recruitment material and with attentionfocused on the performance of gender in this material,and how it and other factors may influence enrolment.

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