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

TL;DR

This study investigates how self-efficacy and test anxiety contribute to gender disparities in physics assessments, revealing that women generally have lower self-efficacy and higher test anxiety, which relate to performance differences.

Contribution

It identifies self-efficacy as a key predictor of physics assessment scores and highlights gender disparities in affective measures within active-learning environments.

Findings

Women score lower on self-efficacy and assessment measures.

Test anxiety does not significantly predict final scores.

Self-efficacy and pretest scores are the best predictors of performance.

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-of-course 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.