Exploring the contributions of self-efficacy and test anxiety to gender differences in assessments

Abstract

The observed performance difference between women and men on assessments in physics-the "gender gap"-is a significant and persistent inequity which has broad implications for the participation of women in physics. Research also shows that gender-based inequities extend to affective measures, such as self-efficacy. In this exploratory study, we report on gender disparities in self-efficacy and test anxiety and their relationship to assessment scores in our active-learning introductory physics course. Overall, gender-based differences in favour of men are observed in all our measures, with women having lower scores on measures associated with success (self-efficacy and assessment scores) and a higher score on a possibly detrimental affective factor (test anxiety). Using a multiple regression model-selection process to explore which measures may explain end-ofcourse Force Concept Inventory (FCI) and final exam scores, we find that the best fitting models include FCI pretest and self-efficacy as predictors, but do not include test anxiety.

Test anxiety, self-efficacy, and gender: A quest for equitable assessment practices in physics

“…For self-efficacy, the gender differences grew from small to medium over the semester; the test anxiety gender gap also increased, but maintained a large effect size. This is consistent with other studies that find gender differences in self-efficacy [7,10] and test anxiety [12] in the physics context. Are there gender differences in students' low-and highstakes assessment scores?…”

“…This study mirrors results seen in other disciplines and institutions [12,13]. As we collect more data, we want to include intersectional analysis to understand the relationship between gender, race, test anxiety, and self-efficacy.…”

“…Prior work has found similar results: both TA and SE are significant, but TA does not explain more variance than SE alone, and TA becomes non-significant when SE is included [12]. These similarities suggest that differences in both test anxiety and self-efficacy are widespread in physics.…”

“…Gendered performance differences can also be attributed to differences in motivational beliefs about physics between male and female students (which can again at least partly be attributed to societal stereotypes about physics) [6-10, 12, 13]. Two factors that have been linked to gender differences in performance are test anxiety (TA) [12,13] and self-efficacy (SE) [6][7][8][9][10].…”

Investigating students' course performance by groups' gender compositions

“…Studies have documented that women experience higher frequencies of test anxiety than men in a variety of undergraduate-level disciplines [7][8][9], which suggests that similar results to Ballen et al may appear in introductory physics. However, Stang et al found that in an introductory physics course test anxiety did not measurably contribute to students' final exam scores when including a self-efficacy predictor [10], indicating that other attitudinal experiences than test anxiety may play a more prominent role in students' course performance.…”