Gender-grade-gap zeroed out under a specific intro-physics assessment regime

TL;DR

This paper shows that a mastery-focused introductory physics assessment regime can eliminate gender-based grade gaps, suggesting that course design significantly influences demographic disparities in physics education.

Contribution

It demonstrates that specific assessment strategies in physics courses can effectively remove gender gaps, highlighting the impact of course design on demographic equity.

Findings

Gender gap reduced to zero under mastery-focused assessment

Concepts-first courses may eliminate other demographic gaps

Course design influences demographic disparities in physics grades

Abstract

Evidence is presented that offering introductory physics courses with an explicit focus on mastery can reduce the gender gap to zero. Taken together with a previous study showing that a concepts-first course may zero out another demographic gap leads one to speculate that demographic grade gaps in introductory physics are just artifacts of the design of the courses and that none of these classes/grades should be assumed to be demographically neutral.