Enriching gender in PER: A binary past and a complex future

In this article, we draw on previous reports from physics, science education, and women's studies to propose a more nuanced treatment of gender in physics education research (PER). A growing body of PER examines gender differences in participation, performance, and attitudes toward physics. We have three critiques of this work: (1) it does not question whether the achievements of men are the most appropriate standard, (2) individual experiences and student identities are undervalued, and (3) the binary model of gender is not questioned. Driven by these critiques, we propose a conception of gender that is more up-to-date with other fields and discuss gender-as-performance as an extended example. We also discuss work on the intersection of identities [e.g., gender with race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) status], much of which has been conducted outside of physics. Within PER, some studies examine the intersection of gender and race, and identify the lack of a single identity as a key challenge of "belonging" in physics. Acknowledging this complexity enables us to further critique what we term a binary gender deficit model. This framework, which is implicit in much of the gender-based PER, casts gender as a fixed binary trait and suggests that women are deficient in characteristics necessary to succeed. Alternative models of gender allow a greater range and fluidity of gender identities, and highlight deficiencies in data that exclude women's experiences. We suggest new investigations that diverge from this expanded gender framework in PER.Comment: 27 pages, accepted to Phys. Rev. Special Topics - PE

Demographics of physics education research

Is physics education research based on a representative sample of students? To answer this question we skimmed physics education research papers from three journals for the years 1970–2015 looking for the number of research subjects, the course the subjects were enrolled in, and the institution where the research was conducted. We combined this data with demographics data about these institutions to compile a profile of physics education research subjects, and compared the demographics of this population to those of all students taking physics in the United States. Our results suggest that physics education research subjects, as a whole, are better prepared mathematically and are from a narrow and unrepresentative subset of our intended target physics student populations. For this reason, findings from research may not be as generalizable to all student populations as we have previously assumed

The Impact of Stereo Display on Student Understanding of Phases of the Moon

"Understanding lunar phases requires three-dimensional information about the relative positions of the Moon, Earth, and Sun, thus using a stereo display in instruction might improve student comprehension of lunar phases or other topics in basic astronomy. We conducted a laboratory 15 sections on phases of the Moon as part of the introductory astronomy classes. Half of the laboratories were taught using stereo visualizations projected by a portable GeoWall system running the AstroWall software, while the other half of the laboratories were identical, but without stereo. We found that both sets of laboratories showed a statistically significant gain in student comprehension, but that there was no statistical difference between the stereo laboratories and the nonstereo laboratories. We conclude that there is no advantage to using a stereo display in teaching about lunar phases.

Enriching gender in physics education research: A binary past and a complex future

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Gender in Physics.] In this article, we draw on previous reports from physics, science education, and women’s studies to propose a more nuanced treatment of gender in physics education research (PER). A growing body of PER examines gender differences in participation, performance, and attitudes toward physics. We have three critiques of this work: (i) it does not question whether the achievements of men are the most appropriate standard, (ii) individual experiences and student identities are undervalued, and (iii) the binary model of gender is not questioned. Driven by these critiques, we propose a conception of gender that is more up to date with other fields and discuss gender as performance as an extended example. We also discuss work on the intersection of identities [e.g., gender with race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) status], much of which has been conducted outside of physics. Within PER, some studies examine the intersection of gender and race, and identify the lack of a single identity as a key challenge of “belonging” in physics. Acknowledging this complexity enables us to further critique what we term a binary gender deficit model. This framework, which is implicit in much of the gender-based PER, casts gender as a fixed binary trait and suggests that women are deficient in characteristics necessary to succeed. Alternative models of gender allow a greater range and fluidity of gender identities, and highlight deficiencies in data that exclude women’s experiences. We suggest new investigations that diverge from this expanded gender framework in PER.peerReviewe