Gender response to Einsteinian physics interventions in school

Abstract

There is growing interest in the introduction of Einsteinian concepts of space, time, light and gravity across the entire school curriculum. We have developed an educational programme named 'Einstein-First', which focuses on teaching Einsteinian concepts by using simple models and analogies. To test the effectiveness of these models and analogies in terms of student attitudes to physics and ability to understand the concepts, various short and long interventions were conducted. These interventions were run with Years 6 to 10 academically talented and average IQ students. In all cases, we observe significant levels of conceptual understanding and improvement in student attitudes, although the magnitude of the improvement depends on age group and programme duration. This paper reports an unexpected outcome in regard to gender effects. We have compared male and female outcomes. In most cases, independent of age group, academic stream and culture (including one intervention in Indonesia), we find that female students enter our programmes with substantially lower attitude scores than males, while upon the completion of the programme, their attitudes are comparable to the boys. This provides a compelling case for widespread implementation of Einsteinian conceptual learning across the school curriculum. We discuss possible reasons for this effect.

Students’ Attitudes Towards Science: Where Do We Go From Here

“…Presented as the perfect scenario to assess the benefits of introducing Einsteinian physics into the lower secondary stages in UK schools and to monitor its effect on the self-belief within the students, particularly that of the girls (Boyle, 2019c), appeared to increase interest in STEM careers throughout the project and to influence girls' view of Physics addressing stereotypes and the current loss of potential. The project had a transformative effect upon achievement, self-efficacy and attitude towards science, confirming previous findings regarding age and gender (Kaur et al, 2020).…”

Can a short intervention focused on gravitational waves and quantum physics improve students’ understanding and attitude?

“…We cannot determine whether this is due to the nature of the material or the activity based learning, which has previously been shown to encourage female improvement. [33] Hence this program can be used as an effective case study to create longer interventions for further implementation of Einsteinian physics.…”

‘I loved exploring a new dimension of reality’ – a case study of middle-school girls encountering Einsteinian physics in the classroom

“…This study adds to the latter body of literature and, specifically, what is known about middle-school girls' interest and engagement with EP. We chose to focus on middleschool girls for two reasons: First, previous research found that girls showed more pronounced gains in conceptual knowledge and attitudes in EP than boys, although the reasons for this gender effect are not yet well understood (Choudhary et al, 2020;Kaur et al, 2020bKaur et al, , 2020a. Synthesising findings from a range of EP interventions lasting between a single day to 20 lessons over ten weeks and over an age range from 11 to 15 years, Kaur et al (2020a) found pronounced improvement factors in girls' attitudes towards science.…”

“…Here, middle-school girls seem to present a particularly interesting student group for two reasons. First, previous research suggested that middle-school girls showed more pronounced gains in conceptual knowledge and attitudes in EP than boys, although the reasons for this gender effect are not yet clear (Choudhary et al, 2020;Kaur et al, 2020bKaur et al, , 2020a. Second, the issue of young girls' engagement with science and the proportion of girls pursuing careers in science has become a matter of considerable concern among educators and policymakers worldwide (e.g.…”