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Re: [Phys-l] Women in physics



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ABSTRACT: Rachel Ivie, in a recent article "Deconstructing the 'Leaky Pipeline" shows an interesting graph "Actual and Expected Percentage of Women and Men in Physics in the U.S. for 6 categories: high school students, Bachelor's degrees, PhD degrees, Assistant Professors, Associate Professors, and Full Professors. Two BIG LEAKS of women from the physics pipeline are apparent between (A) women high school students of physics (about 47%) and women Bachelor's degrees in physics (about 21%), and (B) women Ph.D.'s in physics (14%) and women full physics professors (6%). Fiona McDonnell's ethnographic research suggests that BIG LEAK A may be due to women's strong rejection of the practices and rituals associated with their high school physics course. This is consistent with the research of Lorenzo, Crouch, &Mazur, indicating a reduction in the gender gap in conceptual understanding in an introductory university physics course by using interactive engagement pedagogy. Reduction in the flow of women out of the above two major physics pipeline leaks, A & B, would seem to be required if the American Physical Society's Committee on the Status of Women in Physics (CSWP) is to meet its laudable goal of doubling the number of women in physics over the next 15 years.
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The thread "Winnie and Math," initiated on the CTP-L list (AAPT Committee on Teacher Preparation) by Paul Hickman, and Keith Clay's remark of 16 Aug 2007: "I'm hoping folks are familiar with Rachel Ivie's fabulous work on women in physics. . ." reminded me of a recent article by Rachel Ivie, "Deconstructing the 'Leaky Pipeline' " in the June/July 2007 issue of the new AAPT journal "Interactions." Ivie's article includes an interesting graph "Actual and Expected Percentage of Women and Men in Physics in the U.S. for 6 categories: high school students, Bachelor's degrees, PhD degrees, Assistant Professors, Associate Professors, and Full Professors.

Ivie writes: "Compared to their representation in other fields, women are underrepresented in physics, especially at the top levels. In fact, the gap gets progressively wider at every rung up the academic ladder. . .[as is indicated by her graph]. . . . .For example, women accounted for 14% of all Ph.D.s earned in physics in 2005, but far fewer women - only six percent - were full professors of physics in 2006. This statistical phenomenon is known as the 'leaky pipeline,' reflecting as widely held belief that more women drop out of physics at every step along the educational path. In contrast to the prevailing view, however, data compiled by the American Institute of Physics (AIP) show that for women in physics, these leaks only occur at specific points along the path."

Ivie's graph shows that in addition to the leak between physics Ph.D.'s and full physics professors, another prominent leak occurs between high school and university graduation: about 47% of high school physics students are women, but only about 21% of physics Bachelor's degrees are awarded to women.
Fiona McDonnell (2005), in her article "Why so few choose physics: An alternative explanation for the leaky pipeline,addressed the leak of women between high school physics and physics Bachelor's degrees shown in the data of Ivie & Ray (2005). She wrote:

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Why do so many students who enter physics with an interest in pursuing a career in science, and who experience academic success in high school physics, lose interest in science-physics most especially-as a field of study following their formal exposure to the discipline?

Part of the answer to this question, I suggest, is evident in the nature of students' responses to the instructional practices and culture of their physics classroom. In the late 1990s, I conducted a formal qualitative study to understand the images of physics and physicists held by high school physics students [Hughes-McDonnell (1996)].

The study involved seventeen students, nine boys and eight girls, drawn from nine physics classrooms in seven public high schools in the northeast. Students were enrolled in the most advanced level of physics offered by his/her respective high school. For the vast majority of students with whom I spoke, THEIR DECISION NOT TO PURSUE PHYSICS AT THE COLLEGE LEVEL OR TO TAKE ONLY WHAT MIGHT BE REQUIRED FOR ANOTHER SCIENTIFIC FIELD WAS THE RESULT OF THEIR STRONG REJECTION OF THE PRACTICES AND RITUALS ASSOCIATED WITH THEIR HIGH SCHOOL PHYSICS COURSE (my CAPS); and many distanced themselves from the worldview that they ascribed to those practices.

While these practices and belief systems do not necessarily reflect or represent those of physics or of practicing physicists, they do constitute students' introduction to the discipline. Why should students believe that physics is anything other than what they have experienced? The practices of school physics and the impact they have on students' view of physics as a potential field of study pose a barrier for some students that is both psychological and philosophical in nature. The authoritarian practices of school physics and the culture of physics that students infer from their experiences in school physics must be accounted for in efforts to understand the different choices made by similarly prepared students. I present a few examples from my own research.
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Consistent with McDonnell's alternative explanation for the leak of women between high school physics and physics Bachelor's in "Proof and Prejudice: Women in Mathematics and Physics" [Hake (2006)], I wrote:

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It would appear that the physics pipeline leak of females between high school and earning a bachelor's degree might be reduced by the incorporation of more interactive engagement strategies in introductory physics courses.

The abstract of "Reducing the gender gap in the physics classroom" [Lorenzo et al. (2006)] reads:

"We investigate if the gender gap in conceptual understanding in an introductory university physics course can be reduced by using interactive engagement . . . (IE). . . methods that promote in-class interaction, reduce competition, foster collaboration, and emphasize conceptual understanding. To this end we analyzed data from the introductory calculus-based physics course for non-majors at Harvard University taught traditionally or using different degrees of
interactive engagement. OUR RESULTS SHOW THAT TEACHING WITH CERTAIN INTERACTIVE STRATEGIES NOT ONLY YIELDS SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASED UNDERSTANDING FOR BOTH MALES AND FEMALES, BUT ALSO REDUCES THE GENDER GAP. In the most interactively taught courses, the pre-instruction gender gap was gone by the end of the semester."
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Also in the June/July 2007 issue of "Interactions," Ted Hodapp (2007), Director of Education and Diversity Programs at the American Physical Society (APS), discusses a recent conference held by the APS's Committee on the Status of Women in Physics (CSWP) of department chairs, managers of national laboratories, and funding agencies, with an aim to further CSWP's long range goal of doubling the number of women in physics over the next 15 years. This would seem to require reduction in the flow of women out of the above two major physics pipeline leaks between: (A) high school physics and physics Bachelor's degrees and (B) Ph.D.'s in physics and full physics professors.
Six other references germane to Women in Physics are:

1. "Gender Issues in Physics/Science Education (GIPSE) [Mallow & Hake (2002)].

2. "Women, Gender, Mathematics, and Science" [McDermott (2005).

3. "Scrutinizing Feminist Epistemology: An Examination of Gender in Science" [Almeder, Koertge, & Pinnick (2003)]
4. "Women in Physics: A Review" McCullough (2002).

5. "Relationship of Individual Student Normalized Learning Gains in Mechanics with Gender, High-School Physics, and Pretest Scores on Mathematics and Spatial Visualization" [Hake (2002)].

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
<rrhake@earthlink.net>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi>


REFERENCES [Tiny URL's courtesy <http://tinyurl.com/create.php>.]
AIP. 2005. "FYI: The AIP Bulletin of Science Policy News, 22 March,"New Report on Women in Physics and Astronomy," online at <http://www.aip.org/fyi/2005/035.html>.

AIP. 2006. Statistical Research, "Women in Physics" online at <http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/gendertrends.html>.

Almeder, R.F., N. Koertge, & C.L. Pinnick, eds. 2003. "Scrutinizing Feminist Epistemology: An Examination of Gender in Science." Rutgers University Press; Amazon.com information at <http://tinyurl.com/29rtf4>.

Bleier, R. 1988. "Feminist Approaches to Science." Pergamon Press.

Czujko, R. & R. Ivie. 2005. "Frequently Asked Questions: Women in Physics and Astronomy, 2005," online at <http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/womenfaq.htm>.

Feder, T. 2000. "Physics Lags in Attracting Women," Physics Today 53, July; online at <http://www.aip.org/pt/vol-53/iss-7/p52b.html>.

Hake, R.R. 2002. "Relationship of Individual Student Normalized Learning Gains in Mechanics with Gender, High-School Physics, and Pretest Scores on Mathematics and Spatial Visualization," submitted to the Physics Education Research Conference; Boise, Idaho; August 2002; online at <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/PERC2002h-Hake.pdf> (220 KB). Therein I wrote [see that article for references other than Mallow & Hake (2002)]: "A salient result of the present research is the demonstration of gender disparity in normalized gains [Table I (row 2) and Fig. 1]. The effect size d = 0.68 is not far from the d = 0.8 that Cohen (1988) loosely designates as "large." However, this gender effect size is eclipsed by the VERY large d = 2.43 (Hake 2002b) for "Interactive Engagement" vs "Traditional" courses in the survey of Hake (1998a,b). [Eight reasons for this unusually large d are given in Hake (2004a).] Thus, in my opinion, EFFORT TO INCREASE THE DEGREE OF EFFECTIVE INTERACTIVE ENGAGEMENT FOR ALL STUDENTS SHOULD PROBABLY TAKE A HIGHER PRIORITY THAN EFFORT TO REDUCE GENDER DISPARITY IN FCI <g> VALUES, even despite the deplorable gender inequity in physics participation [Mallow & Hake (2002)].

Hake, R.R. 2006. "Proof and Prejudice: Women in Mathematics and Physics," online at <http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0604&L=pod&O=A&P=15426>. Post of 23 & 24 Apr 2006 to AERA-A, AERA-B, AERA-C, AERA-D, AERA-J, AERA-K, AERA-L, ASSESS, EvalTalk, Math-Learn, Phys-L, PhysLrnR, POD, PsychTeacher (rejected), RUME, STLHE-L, TeachingEdPsych, & TIPS. See also Hake (2007).

Hake, R.R. 2007. "Re: Winnie and Math," online at
<http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0708&L=pod&O=D&P=16976>. Post of 15 August to AERA-C, AERA-J, AERA-K, AERA-L, AP-Physics, CTP-L, Math-Learn, Math-Teach, Physhare, POD, RUME, PhysLrnR, TIPS, & PsychTeacher (rejected).

Hodapp, T. 2007. "A Meeting of Minds on Welcoming Women," Interactions, June/July, p. 29.

Hughes-McDonnell, F. 1996. ''Understanding high school physics students' perspectives of their classroom experiences and their images of physics and physicists: A pilot study,'' Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 1996; unpublished.

Ivie, R. and K. Stowe. 2000. "Women in Physics, 2000." American Institute of Physics.
Ivie and Stowe wrote: "Although women now earn more than one half of all bachelor's degrees in the U.S., physics is not attracting women as quickly as other fields, including life sciences, chemistry, and engineering . . . Compared to other fields, women are sorely underrepresented in physics at both the bachelor's and PhD levels . . . . . Observers have offered various explanations for women's poor representation in physics. Many of the explanations do not hold up in light of available data. It is possible that women still experience subtle discrimination leading them away from physics and that women choose careers that are less clearly linked to physics." For a report on "Women in Physics, 2000" see Feder (2000).

Ivie, R. & K.N. Ray. 2005. "Women in Physics and Astronomy, 2005" online at
<http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/women05.pdf> (264 kB). For an earlier report see Ivie and Stowe (2000). For discussions of the Ivie/Ray report see AIP (2005, 2006) and Czujko & Ivie (2005).

Ivie, R. 2007. "Deconstructing the 'Leaky Pipeline': Gender discrimination may be a factor in explaining the absence of women physics faculty, but the numbers tell a different story," Interactions, June/July, pp. 24-25.

Keller, E.F. 1985. "Reflections on Gender and Science." Yale University Press. For counters to Keller see, e.g., Newton (1997), pages 27 and 209; and the index entries for "Keller" in Koertge (1998).

Koertge, N., ed. 1998. "A House Built on Sand: Exposing Postmodern Myths About Science." Oxford University Press; information at <http://www.oup.com/uk/catalogue/?ci=9780195117257>. For anti-postmodernist comment on the work of Ruth Bleier, Sandra Harding, Evelyn Fox Keller, Helen Longino, and Londa Schiebinger see the corresponding index headings. See also Almeder, Koertge, & Pinnick (2003).

Lorenzo, M., C.H.Crouch, & E. Mazur. 2006. "Reducing the gender gap in the physics classroom," American Journal of Physics 74(2): 118-122; online at
<http://mazur-www.harvard.edu/publications.php?function=search&topic=9>.

Mallow, J.V. & R.R. Hake. 2002. "Gender Issues in Physics/Science Education (GIPSE) - Some Annotated References" (now somewhat dated); online at <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/GIPSE-4b.pdf> (232kB), and at the APS women in physics website <http://www.aps.org/programs/women/index.cfm> under "Resources" at <http://www.aps.org/programs/women/resources/index.cfm>. Contains about 300 references and 200 hot-linked URL's.

McCullough, L. 2002. "Women in Physics: A Review." Phys. Teach. 40(2): 86-91, online to subscribers at <http://scitation.aip.org/dbt/dbt.jsp?KEY=PHTEAH&Volume=40&Issue=2>. McCullough wrote: "Researchers studying the theoretical underpinnings of the nature of science itself [Keller 1985, Bleier 1988, Schiebinger 1999] suggest that the very nature of science itself and the scientific method is inherently masculine, which can serve as a barrier to women."

McDermott, M. 2005. "Women, Gender, Mathematics, and Science," online at <http://homepages.gac.edu/~mmcdermo/women-science-links.html>.

McDonnell, F. 2005. "Editorial: Why so few choose physics: An alternative explanation for the leaky pipeline," Am. J. Phys. 73(7): 583-586; online to subscribers at <http://tinyurl.com/2a7mdw>. I thank Keith Clay of the CTP-L discussion list for calling my attention to this article. <keith-clay@comcast.net>

Newton, R. 1997. "The Truth of Science: Physical Theories and Reality." Harvard University Press; information at <http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/NEWTRU.html>.

Schiebinger, L. 1999. "Has Feminism Changed Science?" Harvard University Press, information at <http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/SCHHAS.html>. For comments on the work of Schiebinger (1999) see e.g., index entries for "Schiebinger" in Koertge (1998).