Role of Inclusiveness of Learning Environment in Predicting Students’ Outcomes in Courses in Which Women Are Not Underrepresented

Abstract

Student beliefs in introductory physics courses can influence their course outcomes and retention in STEMdisciplines and future career aspirations. This study used survey data from 501 students in the first of twosemester algebra-based introductory physics courses primarily taken by bioscience majors, in which women make up approximately 65% of the class. We investigated how the learning environment including perceived recognition, peer interaction, and sense of belonging students' physics outcomes, including their physics self-efficacy, interest, and identity. We found that in general, women had lower physics beliefs than men and the learning environment plays a major role in explaining student outcomes. We also found that perceived recognition played an important role in predicting students' physics identity and students' sense of belonging played an important role in predicting students' physics self-efficacy. These findings can be useful to contemplate strategies to create an equitable and inclusive learning environment to help all students to excel in these physics courses.

STEM sense of belonging for 12-13 year-old talent search participants: Does gender matter?

“…Specific to STEM disciplines, domain-specific self-efficacy has been found to be a significant predictor of persistence (Bandura, 1986;Brainard & Carlin, 1997;Chan, 2022) and career choice (Cass et al, 2011). Sense of belonging and identity are distinct from but have their foundation in the research on self-efficacy (Cwik & Singh, 2022;Vincent-Ruz & Schunn, 2018).…”

“…Self-efficacy refers to our overall belief in our ability to succeed. Sense of belonging and identity are both derived from the research on self-efficacy (Cwik & Singh, 2022; Vincent-Ruz & Schunn, 2018). An investigation of the similarities and differences between STEM identity and STEM sense of belonging would enable us to gain a better understanding of these related but distinct concepts.…”