Girls in physics
The under representation of girls in physics post-16 is a serious issue for the UK and in particular for the STEM community.
The Institute believes:
- Any changes to the physics curriculum should be informed by an understanding of the gender issues and the impact of changes on girls must be monitored
- A good supply of well qualified and enthusiastic Physics teachers is vital, because girls, who often lack familiarity with the situations and activities that are common in physics, require more support to negotiate shared meanings and are therefore more sensitive to poor teaching than boys
- The physics curriculum must develop students' understanding of how the physics they are learning relates to themselves, impacts on the modern world and opens up a range of professional and technical career
- The whole assessment process must not introduce barriers to the participation of girls in physics
Girls are under-represented in physics post-16. They continue to make up only 22% of those taking A level physics, despite huge changes in the educational system over the last 20 years. Physics is only the 19th most popular A level with girls, compared with the 6th most popular for boys.
The Institute of Physics commissioned a review to try and understand the causes of this problem. Drawing on this review a teachers’ guide and two videos were produced to help teachers to find ways of encouraging more girls to study Physics.
Girls in the Physics Classroom: A Teachers’ Guide for Action
Girls in the Physics Classroom: Videos
The Institute has been working with the National Network of Science Learning Centres, funded by the DCSF, on an action research programme to share information on successful teaching and learning strategies to engage girls with physics. The second phase,in 2008, enabled teachers from 100 schools to participate. The evaluation aimed to gauge the success of the interventions that schools undertook as part of the project.
The Department of Children Schools and Families have published two reports from the Girls into Physics: Action Research evaluation. The Research Brief contains recommendations from the project and highlights the key findings of the evaluation. The full Research Report contains the theory of change model developed for the evaluation, rich data from teachers and students and further analysis of key issues which is useful for informing cpd development using action research approaches with teachers and students.
Documents are available to download via the links below: