Title: INVESTIGATING FEMALE AND MALE STUDENTS’ MOTIVATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS AND PERFORMANCE IN INTRODUCTORY PHYSICS

Abstract:

Physics is one of the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines in which the participation of women and ethnic/racial minorities is unacceptably low.  The representation gaps among certain groups of students in physics has motivated education researchers and practitioners to understand and address the underlying reasons of low diversity in physics. Although there has been an increasing effort in the physics community to increase the participation of women, only 20% of the all bachelors’ degrees in physics across U.S. is currently earned by women. Lack of prior preparation, low encouragement from mentors, gender-based ability attributions, and stereotype threat are some of the proposed reasons that can undermine women’s sense of belonging and self-efficacy and lead to have higher anxiety and self-doubt in their physics content knowledge and related skills. In this thesis, I focused on understanding the gender differences in students’ motivational characteristics in introductory physics courses for STEM majors and how they vary across time by investigating the relation between gender, physics performance, and motivational characteristics. In particular, I examined how physics self-efficacy, interest, intelligence mindset views (e.g., whether intelligence is innate or can grow with effort) and getting recognition can predict students’ physics course performance overall and on standardized conceptual physics tests after controlling for their prior academic preparation (e.g., SAT scores, AP exam, High School GPA) and their demographics (gender, ethnicity/race). Since physics is one of the pillar courses in STEM programs and first-year college experiences in these courses is significantly influential for students’ retention in STEM, I also examined the physics identity of students as STEM majors in the introductory physics courses. Specifically, I have studied the female and male students’ perception of how their peers and teaching assistant/instructors recognize them as someone who is good at physics. In all of the studies I have conducted, I have found large gender differences in the motivational constructs examined which created gendered-patterns in students’ identity formation as STEM majors. The implication of these results for how to enhance women’s participation and achievement in STEM disciplines in which they are severely underrepresented is discussed throughout the thesis.