Gender differences in high school students’ interests in physics

In the study, there was an insignificant difference, in favor of the male students, concerning the personal interest levels of female and male students. According to this finding, when the findings in the literature (Rajakorpi, 2000; cited in Uitto, Juuti, Lavonen and Meisalo, 2006) related to significant differences between the interest levels towards physics that are in favor of male students are considered, that the female students’ personal interest level towards physics is insignificantly different from male students’ interest levels indicates that women’s’ position in the field of physics may increase. According to the content analysis results, some of female students suggested their teacher as the cause for their disinterest more than the male students. Based on this finding, it is possible to suggest that physics course teachers are crucial factors affecting personal interest levels of female students. It is believed that based on the experience of teachers, they can conduct effective classroom activities in order to enable female students’ classroom participation. Zhu (2007) indicated that female and male students may have different learning styles; “Girls preferred to learn physics in a conversational style and collaborative activity, and work with concrete objects. Boys, on the contrary, liked to learn through argument and individual activity, and tended to use more abstract thinking”. Parallel to this idea, Wilson (1996) indicated that classrooms arelearning environments “where teachers and learners interact with each other and use variety of tools and information resources with each other and use variety of tools and information resources in their pursuit of learning activities”(cited in Adeyemo, 2011).However, the literature review suggests that there are significant differences between female and male students’ interest in physics. Although females have recently experienced a better development in physics than the past (Synder, Tan and Hofmann, 2004) studies indicate that female students are less interested in physics than male students. For instance, Tsabari and Yarden’s (2010) literature review suggests that male students are more interested in the physics course than female students. According to their study, Cobern and Loving (2002) stated that male students were interested in the Physics course more than the female students. Researchers have tried to explain this based on cultural factors. Similarly, according to a study conducted by Adams et al. (2006), females have less personal interest towards physics than male students.

In this study, male students were detected to be significantly more aware of the developments in the field of physics than female students. According to the content analysis results concerning this finding, unlike female students male students were more interested in technological developments. This finding is not surprising when the passive social role of females and the general social structure in which they tend to more sociable fields are considered. This finding may have occurred due to the fact that males are generally more interested in technology than females. Previous studies support this finding. Cunningham et al. (2015) stated that female students are significantly less interested in technology than male students. Similarly Charles and Bradley (2005) asserted that females are rather less represented in information and communication technologies. Based on the content analysis results, when male students’ views concerning their technologic interest are considered, it is evident that these views are centered on the fact that developments in physics affect the developments in technologic devices and computer software, contribute to the developments in medicine and are used in war environments. According to several studies, women have fallen behind men in computer technologies (Sanders, 2006) and the harsh language of technology may be negatively affecting women’s’ interest (Cole et. al., 1994; Linn, 1999). Similarly Appianing and Eck (2015) stated that when compared to male students, female students attack less importance to developments in computer technologies.

According to the results of the analyses conducted in this study, male students are significantly more willing to prefer a future career related to physics compared to female students. When content analysis results concerning this finding are considered, unlike male students, factors including the negative perception towards physics, the lack of a leader model the lack of capacity of female students are prominent. Male students stated that they found the fields of physics active, that they liked doing research and that they may chose a profession related to physics especially in engineering. Female students stated that they want to be teachers in the fields of physics. According to the study findings, while female and male students have similar personal interest levels concerning physics, it is quite striking that there is a significant difference in favor of male students with regards to preferring fields of physics in career choosing. At this point, female participation in physics can be increased by taking into consideration the factors they underlined (especially the teacher factor) and their negative perceptions concerning physics especially in high school years, a crucial stage in career planning, can be changed. The widespread women roles in social fields in developing countries may cause female students to perceive fields of science as masculine. However, Hill et al. (2010) stated that success and interest levels of females in science and mathematics are shaped by their environment. Similarly Jammula (2015) underlined that, based on an interview with a female student, the female student had cast herself a mother role and that this role would limit her skills in physics. In this context, developed countries should be taken as a role and Physics courses should be taught so as to attract female students’ attentions, give them courage and to help them perceive themselves as the center of the learning process. Fencl and Scheel (2005) indicated that using of student centered learning methods, the social persuasion and vicarious learning categories had the most important associations correlated with both classroom environment and the sources of self-efficacy(Cited in Trujillo and Tanner, 2014). According to other studies, there is a considerable amount of similar results. For instance, JCQ (2013) detected that male students prefer physics more than female students in choosing a profession. Akbayır (2002) underlined that the department of Physics was preferred mostly by male students. Priyadarshini (2014) stated that only 30% of the researchers in the fields of science worldwide are female. Osborne et al. (2003) underlined that factors such as teacher and family have crucial effects in female students’ professional choices concerning physics. Silim and Crosse’s (2014) study indicating that male students are represented in the field of engineering more than female students supports this finding. In a study focusing on the reasons for this, researchers emphasized factors such as female students’ perceptions about the fields of science and engineering, having difficulty in understanding subjects and influences of the families. Similarly, International Federation of University (2015) detected that only 12% of the fields of engineering consists of females. Dweck (2003) stated that female students had a belief that they are not as good as male students in the fields of science and mathematics. Similarly, Dar-Nimrod & Heine (2006) stated that between female and male students there is a significant difference in favor of male students with regards to being competent in physics.

One other finding of the study suggests that both female and male students enjoy solving problems at similar rates. According to these findings of the study, female and male students have similar attitudes towards physics with regards to solving problems in physics. According to the content analysis results, it was observed that the participant emphasized similar codes. Problem solving is one of the crucial components of physics class (Benckert, 2000). Problem solving skills, which are at the upper stages in cognitive learning, provide considerable amount of information concerning to what extent learning takes place. Thus, it is possible to assert that success and the problem solving skill are parallel. Both female and male students who participated in the study stated that they like problem solving because it increases their self-confidence and feeling of success. The reasons that participants stated as not liking problem solving were failure, lack of motivation and lack of self-confidence. According to a study conducted by Brad (2011), it is evident that female and male students have similar perceptions concerning problem solving. On the other hand, other studies suggest that male students generally have more positive attitudes towards problem solving in the Physics course. For instance, when Aktamış et al. (2012) examined high school students’ attitudes towards problem solving in physics, they detected that male students have more positive attitudes than female students. The finding about enjoying problem solving in physics in this study is significant based on the fact that it, at least to some extent, can change the male-dominant view.