The longitudinal effects of STEM identity and gender on flourishing and achievement in college physics

Abstract

BackgroundDrawing on social identity theory and positive psychology, this study investigated women’s responses to the social environment of physics classrooms. It also investigated STEM identity and gender disparities on academic achievement and flourishing in an undergraduate introductory physics course for STEM majors. One hundred sixty undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory physics course were administered a baseline survey with self-report measures on course belonging, physics identification, flourishing, and demographics at the beginning of the course and a post-survey at the end of the academic term. Students also completed force concept inventories, and physics course grades were obtained from the registrar.ResultsWomen reported less course belonging and less physics identification than men. Physics identification and grades evidenced a longitudinal bidirectional relationship for all students (regardless of gender) such that when controlling for baseline physics knowledge: (a) students with higher physics identification were more likely to earn higher grades; and (b) students with higher grades evidenced more physics identification at the end of the term. Men scored higher on the force concept inventory than women; although no gender disparities emerged for course grades. For women, higher physics (versus lower) identification was associated with more positive changes in flourishing over the course of the term. High-identifying men showed the opposite pattern: negative change in flourishing was more strongly associated with high identifiers than low identifiers.ConclusionsOverall, this study underlines gender disparities in physics both in terms of belonging and physics knowledge. It suggests that strong STEM identity may be associated with academic performance and flourishing in undergraduate physics courses at the end of the term, particularly for women. A number of avenues for future research are discussed.

Students’ reasons for STEM choices and the relationship of mathematics choice to university admission

“…In the cohort sample, males were interested in Information Technology, IT Communication, and Technology but showed less interest towards Health and Wellbeing and Education than their female counterparts. This result is in line with a previous study (Su et al, 2009) that found men prefer working with things and women prefer working with people, also raising questions about STEM identity as studied by Seyranian et al (2018).…”

“…Yet, although the Finnish girls were the topmost mathematics performers in the world (Ministry of Education and Culture, 2016), we found that their further study interests were significantly segregated by gender, neglecting the vast possibilities of STEM careers. Adding to the STEM identity and gender study findings of Seyranian et al (2018), careful attention must be paid to students' physical and social learning environments which may send cues about who belongs in or may succeed in STEM fields.…”

“…According to the new government program in Finland, a national goal is to increase the number of highly educated people in the youth population to reach more than 50% (Finnish Government, 2019). Higher STEM identification may be associated with higher academic achievement (Seyranian et al, 2018), yet STEM subjects or fields such as ICT (Castaño & Webster 2011) are not attracting enough students, and the decreasing number of students in science learning has been recognized as a national problem (Linnansaari, Viljaranta, Lavonen, Schneider, & Salmela-Aro, 2015). Finland provides many career opportunities especially for people with STEM competencies.…”

“…Science and STEM identity has a complex differential function in supporting students' optional science choices by gender, and STEM identity may be associated with academic performance and flourishing in undergraduate physics courses at the end of the term, particularly for women (Seyranian et al, 2018;Vincent-Ruz & Schunn, 2018). In mathematical problem solving, the role of selfefficacy beliefs and the nature of science identity has also been widely investigated (Pajares & Miller, 1994;Pajares & Urdan, 2006;Vincent-Ruz & Schunn 2018;Zeldin & Pajares, 2000).…”

Sex and pedagogy influences in physics learning-related reorganization of brain activation

“…Yet many students from underrepresented groups experience challenges that pose barriers to their education 1 , a problem that contributes to underrepresentation of women in STEM with only 21% of physics Bachelor's degrees being awarded to women in the United States [2][3][4][5] . Female students tend to underperform on physics conceptual assessments relative to their male peers 6 , which has been linked to a range of social factors (e.g., prior exposure to physics concepts, attitudes and beliefs about physics, experiences of stereotype threat, career expectations, science identity, and perceptions of belongingness in physics classrooms [6][7][8][9] ). While this prior work suggests evidence of sex differences associated with students' experiences in introductory physics, it is unknown whether such differences may translate to distinctions in brain activity supporting physics learning.…”