Gender gap on concept inventories in physics: what is consistent, what is inconsistent, and what factors influence the gap?

TL;DR

This review analyzes the persistent gender gap in physics concept inventories, highlighting its small but significant size, variability across topics, and the complexity of multiple contributing factors, with implications for physics education research.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of gender gaps in physics concept inventories, emphasizing the multifactorial nature and challenges in addressing the gap.

Findings

Men outperform women on mechanics inventories with a 13% pretest gap.

Smaller gender gap observed in electromagnetism inventories, sometimes favoring women.

Multiple small factors contribute to the gender gap, with no single explanation sufficient.

Abstract

We review the literature on the gender gap on concept inventories in physics. Across studies of the most commonly used mechanics concept inventories, the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) and Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE), mens average pretest scores are always higher than womens, and in most cases mens posttest scores are higher as well. The weighted average gender difference on these tests is 13% for pretest scores, 12% for posttest scores, and 6% for normalized gain. This difference is much smaller than the average difference in normalized gain between traditional lecture and interactive engagement (25%), but it is large enough that it could impact the results of studies comparing the effectiveness of different teaching methods. There is sometimes a gender gap on commonly used electromagnetism concept inventories, but it is usually much smaller and sometimes is zero or favors women. The weighted average gender difference on these tests is 3.7% for pretest scores, 8.5% for posttest scores, and 6% for normalized gain. Based on our analysis of 26 published articles, no single factor is sufficient to explain the gap. Several high-profile studies that have claimed to account for or reduce the gender gap have failed to be replicated in subsequent studies, suggesting that isolated claims of explanations of the gender gap should be interpreted with caution. Other factors, such as gender differences in background preparation, scores on different kinds of assessment, and splits between how students respond to test questions when answering for themselves or for a scientist do contribute to a difference between male and female responses, but the size of these differences is smaller than the size of the overall gender gap, suggesting that the gender gap is most likely due to the combination of many small factors rather than any one factor that can easily be modified.