A longitudinal analysis of students’ motivational characteristics in introductory physics courses: Gender differences

Abstract

The lack of diversity and the under-performance of underrepresented students in STEM courses have been the focus of researchers in the last decade. In particular, many hypotheses have been put forth for the reasons for the under-representation and under-performance of women in physics. Here, we present a framework for helping all students learn in science courses that takes into account four factors: (1) the characteristics of instruction and learning tools, (2) student characteristics, (3) implementation of instruction and learning tools, and (4) the students’ environments. While there has been much research on factor 1 (characteristics of instruction and learning tools), there has been less focus on factor 2 (students’ characteristics, and in particular, motivational factors). Here, we focus on the baseline characteristics of introductory physics students obtained from survey data to inform factor 2 of the framework. A longitudinal analysis of students’ motivational characteristics in two-semester introductory physics courses was performed by administering pre- and post-surveys that evaluated students’ self-efficacy, grit, fascination with physics, value associated with physics, intelligence mindset, and physics epistemology. We found that female students reported lower levels of self-efficacy, fascination, and value associated with physics, and held a more “fixed” view of intelligence in the context of physics compared to male students. Female students’ fascination and value associated with physics decreased significantly more than males’ after an introductory physics course sequence. In addition, females’ view of physics intelligence became more “fixed” compared to males’ by the end of an introductory physics course sequence. Grit was the only factor on which females reported averages that were equal to or higher than males throughout introductory physics courses. The findings inform the framework and have implications for the development and implementation of effective pedagogies and learning tools to help all students learn.

Female students with A’s have similar physics self-efficacy as male students with C’s in introductory courses: A cause for alarm?

“…Unfortunately, several studies have shown that female students have significantly lower self-efficacy than male students in STEM-related domains [23,53,54] including in mathematics, engineering [14,24,55], and computer science [56,57]. In physics, female students report significantly lower self-efficacy than male students [58][59][60][61][62], even in interactive engagement courses [60] and even if female students had received prior physics instruction in high school [61]. Furthermore, female students experience a decline in self-efficacy throughout their engineering education at college [55].…”

Investigation of male and female students’ motivational characteristics throughout an introductory physics course sequence

“…We then created a survey to cover the core aspects of each construct but with a goal to minimize total survey length, adapting questions from other well-validated surveys [7,8,[10][11][12][13][14][15]. The final version of the survey has 29 Likert-scale items.…”

Motivational characteristics of underrepresented ethnic and racial minority students in introductory physics courses

“…Since there have been relatively few longitudinal studies focusing on underrepresented racial/ethnic minority students' self-efficacy and intrinsic interest in physics [11], we investigated students' motivational characteristics at three time points during a two-semester algebra-based and calculus-based introductory physics course sequence. The findings can be a stepping stone to developing and implementing learning tools in order to help all students succeed in physics courses.…”