Physics education research: A research subfield of physics with gender parity

Abstract

Women currently outnumber men in obtaining undergraduate degrees but are underrepresented within STEM fields. However, women's representation varies by STEM field, and even further by STEM subfield. One field that has held a persistent low representation of women is physics. This paper seeks to uncover the truth behind an anecdotal claim that the subfield of physics education research (PER) has a higher representation of women than physics as a whole. Graduate students in PER completed an online survey to assess their demographics, trajectory in PER, climate experiences, and goals for their research. The response rate for the survey was 68%, yielding 125 total respondents. This paper will focus on the 91 respondents enrolled in U.S. graduate programs. It was found that women make up 51% of the U.S. PER graduate students in this sample, as compared to only 19% of physics graduate students overall. Survey findings also revealed that both women and men in PER graduate programs experience similarly positive working relationships with faculty and fellow students. Last, both men and women reported building a stronger scientific workforce and becoming better teachers as goals for their PER research.

Gender Differences of Theoretical Physics of Undergraduates Major in Physics

“…It is a well-documented fact that the disciplines of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) are pre-dominated by male students (Islam Dip, 2017;Steegh, Höffler, Keller, & Parchmann, 2019). In the past few decades, studying issues of gender in physics has been a topic of concern in the physics education community (Barthelemy, Van Dusen, & Henderson, 2015;Brewe & Sawtelle, 2016;Dam-o, Gondek, Karbowiak, & Wibig, 2018;Gee, 2015;Jones & Kirk, 1990;Kelly, 2016;Madsen, McKagan, & Sayre, 2013;Potvin & Hazari, 2016;Rodriguez, Potvin, & Kramer, 2016;Traxler, Cid, Blue, & Barthelemy, 2016;Wilson, Low, Verdon, & Verdon, 2016). Despite some progress has been made in narrowing the gender gap in science in recent years, the number of girls and women in the fields of physics, engineering and technology is still insufficient and marginal (Dam-o et al, 2018).…”

How Stereotypes Impact Women in Physics

“…These numbers can vary by subfield [1,4,5], but the overall physics average remains small. This low representation has been the focus of many prior studies.…”

Educational trajectories of graduate students in physics education research

“…When specifically considering the field of PER, only one article has been published. The PER article by Barthelemy, Van Dusen, and Henderson [6] was the first of a series of articles on graduate PER student experiences. Our article presented here is a companion piece to the Barthelemy, Van Dusen, and Henderson [6] article that examined the qualitative portions of our mixed methods study.…”

“…The PER article by Barthelemy, Van Dusen, and Henderson [6] was the first of a series of articles on graduate PER student experiences. Our article presented here is a companion piece to the Barthelemy, Van Dusen, and Henderson [6] article that examined the qualitative portions of our mixed methods study. The qualitative portion of the research was an exploratory study using in-depth interviews with 13 graduate students and post-doctoral scholars in PER.…”

“…In the Barthelemy, Van Dusen, and Henderson [6] study, seven of the thirteen participants chose PER while applying to graduate school while six switched to PER as graduate students or for their post-doctoral positions. As members of the PER community the participants described overall positive interactions with their peers, advisors, and faculty within their departments.…”