The Importance of High School Physics Teachers for Female Students’ Physics Identity and Persistence

Hazari, Zahra; Brewe, Eric; Goertzen, Renee Michelle; Hodapp, Theodore

doi:10.1119/1.4974122

Cited by 78 publications

(54 citation statements)

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“…In quantitative studies of mathematics and physics identity, recognition was found to have the strongest direct effect on students seeing themselves as a math or physics person (Cribbs et al, 2015;Godwin et al, 2016). Physics recognition also strongly predicts students' intentions to persist in physics careers (Hazari, Brewe, Goertzen, & Hodapp, 2017;Lock, Hazari, & Potvin, 2013).…”

Section: Early Stem Recognition and Identitymentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Being seen as a science person, for example, enables or limits whether a student sees her/himself as a “science person.” In quantitative studies of mathematics and physics identity, recognition was found to have the strongest direct effect on students seeing themselves as a math or physics person (Cribbs et al, ; Godwin et al, ). Physics recognition also strongly predicts students’ intentions to persist in physics careers (Hazari, Brewe, Goertzen, & Hodapp, ; Lock, Hazari, & Potvin, ). Qualitative work insightfully reveals that the accumulation of recognition experiences from others contributes to the identity trajectories of individuals and whether they envision a future self in science (Barton et al, ).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Early informal STEM experiences and STEM identity: The importance of talking science

et al. 2019

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In this paper, we examine the relationship between participants’ childhood science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) related experiences, their STEM identity (i.e., seeing oneself as a STEM person), and their college career intentions. Whereas some evidence supports the importance of childhood (i.e., K‐4) informal STEM education experiences, like participating in science camps, existing research does not adequately address their relationship to STEM career intention later in life. Grounding our work in identity research, we tested the predictive power of STEM identity on career intention (N = 15,847). We found that for every one‐point higher on our STEM identity scale, participants’ odds of choosing a STEM career in college increased by 85%. We then tested whether a variety of childhood informal experiences predicted participants’ STEM identity. While controlling for home environment, gender, and other relevant factors, only talking with friends and family about science, and consuming science and science‐fiction media (i.e., books and television) were predictive of STEM identity in college.

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Section: Early Stem Recognition and Identitymentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early informal STEM experiences and STEM identity: The importance of talking science

et al. 2019

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“…These young students are in their adolescence and thus move through a developmental period where they discover and develop their (gendered) identities [72,73]. In this developmental stage, adolescents consolidate their commitments to life plans and projects [73,74], and young women build their motivation to become physicists [75]. Besides the academic strength of the young women in the intervention and their potential to excel in physics, these students tend to be affected by messages from the social environment (e.g., ability stereotypes) [76].…”

Section: Research Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Engaging young women in physics: An intervention to support young women’s physics identity development

Wulff

Hazari

Petersen

et al. 2018

Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res.

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This study presents findings on the physics identity development of female students in the German Physics Olympiad who participated in an intervention designed to support their engagement in physics. Enrichment programs such as the Physics Olympiad have been found to positively impact students' engagement and intent to pursue a career in science. However, many enrichment programs, including the Physics Olympiad, suffer from an underrepresentation of young women. The intervention investigated in this study capitalizes on gender-related research in physics education in order to explore ways in which gender equity can be raised in enrichment programs. To this end, we designed an identity-safe learning environment that facilitates participating young women's physics identity development. For example, same-sex groupings and considerately adopted physics contents that particularly acknowledge young women's interests (e.g., relation to medical issues and the human body) were utilized. Overall, 30 Olympians took part in a one-day intervention (13 females, 17 males). Positive effects in two important physics identity constructs, namely, interest and competence, for young women were found, while at the same time no effects were found for young men. Furthermore, the young women were more likely to participate in next year's Physics Olympiad, compared to the overall female Physics Olympiad population. These results indicate that the careful design of an intervention based on gender research and science identity theory can support young women's physics identity development.

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“…Moreover, prior research has revealed that high school physics teachers are positioned to attract students to physicsrelated careers, including students who were not previously interested in physics. Surveys of more than 900 female physics undergraduates showed that female students are attracted to physics (from other career interests) during high school at more than double the rates than during middle school or college [6]. In addition, both male and female teachers have been found to be equally effective in attracting female students to science, including physics [7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining physics identity development through two high school interventions

Cheng¹,

Potvin²,

Khatri³

et al. 2019

2018 Physics Education Research Conference Proceedings

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As part of the STEP UP 4 Women project, a national initiative to empower high school teachers to recruit women to pursue physics degrees in college, we developed two lessons for high school physics classes that are intended to facilitate the physics identity development of female students. One discusses physics careers and links to students' own values and goals; the other focuses on a discussion of underrepresentation of women in physics with the intention of having students elicit and examine stereotypes in physics. In piloting these lessons, we found statistically significant improvements in students' identities, particularly recognition beliefs (feeling recognized by others as a physics person) and beliefs in a future physics career. Moreover, female students have larger gains than male students in future beliefs (seeing themselves as physicists in the future) from both lessons, which makes it promising to contribute to alleviating the underrepresentation of women in physics. Using structural equation modeling, we test a path model of various physics identity constructs, extending an earlier, established model. In this paper, we also compare a preliminary structural analysis of students' physics identities before and after the career lesson, with an eye towards understanding how students' identities develop over time and due to these experiences. I.

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The Importance of High School Physics Teachers for Female Students’ Physics Identity and Persistence

Cited by 78 publications

References 10 publications

Early informal STEM experiences and STEM identity: The importance of talking science

Early informal STEM experiences and STEM identity: The importance of talking science

Engaging young women in physics: An intervention to support young women’s physics identity development

Examining physics identity development through two high school interventions

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