United States

Of the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields, physics sees a dramatic underrepresentation and a lack of diversity due to systemic educational issues. Historically underrepresented people in physics (HUPiP) include women and racial minorities (specifically Black and Hispanic/Latinx ). Based on the American Institute of Physics TEAM-UP project and the American Physical Society Threatened Departments project, we decided to pursue a program to increase the number of HUPiP by starting locally in Philadelphia, a racially diverse community. By building relationships between Drexel Physics and physics teachers in Philadelphia schools, we hope to work with teachers to survey the paths students take to being a physicist. To this end, we interviewed Philadelphia physics teachers to get a better sense of their interests, needs, and attitudes toward recruiting students into physics. These interviews revealed that there is a need for improved personalized communication, a desire for HUPiP guest speakers in the classroom, clearer information on careers in physics, and highlighting specific school district difficulties surrounding high school physics education.

PERC SM 21

Recruiting Future Philly Physicists

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recruitment

physics

Join us in exploring emergent themes in PER as a scholarly endeavor and as a research community!  Since its inception, PER has served as a confluence of discipline, theory, research methodology, practice, and application.  How have these facets and the interplays among them been fruitful for physics education globally, regionally, locally, or otherwise?  And, how have our successes and interactions influenced the very nature of PER itself?
Following the lead of AAPT for the summer meeting, PERC 20/20 was virtual. Enjoy browsing the content.

PERC SM 20

Since its inception, PER has served as a confluence of discipline, theory, research methodology, practice, and application.  How have these facets and the interplays among them been fruitful for physics education globally, regionally, locally, or otherwise?  And, how have our successes and interactions influenced the very nature of PER itself?

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**Making Physics More Inclusive and Eliminating Exclusionary Practices in Physics**

As a gateway discipline to STEM majors and careers, physics plays a central role in deciding who does, and who doesn't, get to discover and pursue scientific careers. Technical and scientific professionals are rewarded with economic privilege and status which affords them both social and cultural power. Therefore, social justice will be realized only when the opportunity, and the choice, to excel in physics is open to all students. The culture and practices of the physics classroom reflect the culture of physics at large, which raises the question of how our professional physics communities can embrace, rather than inadvertently repel, a diverse group of academics that can help improve physics culture.  To this end, the 2021 Physics Education Research Conference will focus on defining inclusive spaces and practices. Additionally, we will explore strategies for eliminating exclusionary practices in our classrooms, research spaces, and professional organizations. We call on the community to propose sessions that will drive conversations related to these initiatives throughout PERC 2021.

Please download the full program [here. ](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TRMC_SYJ3PUqXyP7sskA7LRSA8ow0eRE/view?usp=sharing)

August 4, 2021 - August 5, 2021 in a Virtual Conference Format

Making Physics More Inclusive and Eliminating Exclusionary Practices in Physics

The American Physical Society calls on its members to improve the diversity of physics by supporting an inclusive culture that encourages women and Black, Indigenous, and people of color to become physicists. Introductory physics courses provide opportunities for recruiting and retaining diverse students or enacting policies and cultural practices that disproportionately harm students from minoritized groups. Introductory calculus-based electricity and magnetism courses have received far less attention from researchers than introductory mechanics courses. To better understand the role introductory electricity and magnetism courses play in the lack of diversity in physics, we investigated the intersecting relationships between racism and sexism in inequities in student conceptual knowledge using a quantitative critical framework. The analyses used Bayesian hierarchical linear models to examine students' conceptual knowledge as measured by the Conceptual Survey of Electricity and Magnetism. The data came from the LASSO database and included 3,686 students from 83 calculus-based courses at 16 institutions. The model indicated society owed educational debts in conceptual knowledge due to racism, sexism, or both to Black, Hispanic, Asian, and White Hispanic students and White women. Of these groups, society owed the largest educational debts to Black students. The courses, of which almost all used collaborative instruction (81 of 83) supported by learning assistants (66 of 83), added to the educational debts owed to Black students, maintained the debts owed to Hispanic and White Hispanic students and White women, and mitigated the debts owed to Asian students.

Societal Educational Debts Due to Racism and Sexism in Calculus-based Electricity and Magnetism Courses

Descriptions of the Nature of Science are in contrast with the widespread notion that “physics” is objective, unaffected by human influence. To better understand students’ thinking about the nature of physics, we taught a lesson from the Underrepresentation Curriculum and collected written responses before and after in-class discussion about the nature of physics. In this manuscript, we share student responses about the presence of subjectivity in physics and relate them to commonly accepted ideas about the Nature of Science. Prior to discussing subjectivity, students tend to describe physics without reference to human influence. Afterwards, many students identify that while physical properties may be objective, human interpretation, biases, and values influence physics as well. Some students also consider our understanding of physics as incomplete. These discussions are a first step towards increasing awareness of structural and individual subjectivity. We believe this will ultimately support a more equitable, robust scientific community.

Embracing subjectivity in physics to support student empowerment

Physics mentors play an important role in supporting students in postsecondary education and in their transition to graduate school and careers. The knowledge and beliefs physics mentors have about disability can affect how they mentor students with disabilities. We administered the Disability and Physics Careers Survey (DPCS) to 237 practicing physicists recruited through physics-specific listservs to measure their knowledge about disability and beliefs about the viability of physics careers for people with different disability diagnoses. This study compares practicing physicists’ varied knowledge about different categories of impairments and diagnoses, and their beliefs about the viability of future careers for students with specific impairments. We present our findings examining the knowledge of practicing physicists about disability, their beliefs about the viability of certain physics careers for people with disabilities, and how those beliefs may vary depending on their personal disability experience

Examining physicists’ perspectives of career viability and knowledge of impairment

This study examines survey data from 2,129 women undergraduates at CUWiP (Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics) in order to classify what led them to study physics. We use expectancy-value and self-efficacy theory to create a coding framework based on different types of value and efficacy expectations in order to group responses. We find that the most common attractions are social persuasion, which is due to pressure or persuasion from people around the students, and intrinsic value, which is related to the inherent value of engaging in physics.

Examining reasons undergraduate women join physics

Race continues to play a major role in the experiences of students of color at predominantly white institutions. In this study we examine the experiences of six graduate STEM students of color using the lens of Critical Race Theory (CRT), in order to understand their racialized experiences. CRT has deep roots in legal studies and was created for understanding and transforming the relationship between race, racism, and power, thus providing a theoretical framework for analyzing student responses. Our participants reported experiencing microaggressions and isolation while pursuing their graduate degrees. This article serves to highlight the voices of students of color while simultaneously raising awareness to issues of racism that student of color may face at predominantly white institutions.

Microaggressions and Isolation among Graduate STEM Students of Color

This research focuses on the experiences of three undergraduate women who are physics majors. Specifically we conducted semi-structured, empathetic interviews which reveal how uncomfortable physics environments inside and outside of the classroom exclude undergraduate women. The women give accounts of the behaviors of their male peers and instructors that influenced the physics culture. We use standpoint theory to focus on the experiences of undergraduate women to provide a holistic perspective of physics as well as identify key issues that these women faced in their undergraduate physics program and potential strategies to implement in the future to support undergraduate women in physics. Some of their suggestions include providing mentoring for women, training sessions, and establishing a code of conduct.

Negative impacts of an unwelcoming physics environment on undergraduate women

Self-efficacy has been shown to affect student engagement, learning, and persistence in various science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) courses and majors. Additionally, prior research has shown that women have lower self-efficacy than men in STEM courses in which women are outnumbered by men. This study examines the self-efficacy of men and women with similar performance in two consecutive algebra-based introductory physics courses in which women make up two-thirds of the students. These were mandatory courses at a large public university in the US taken primarily by bioscience majors, many of whom are interested in health professions. Our findings show a gender gap in self-efficacy disadvantaging women when controlling for course grade in both physics 1 and physics 2 both at the beginning and end of the course. Additionally, we find that most of the gender gap in self-efficacy is due to biased perceptions rather than performance in the courses.

Women have lower physics self-efficacy controlling for grade even in courses in which they outnumber men

In recent years, addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion in physics and astronomy has received growing attention. One key topic is how we can transform our classroom environments to generate welcoming, inclusive, and equitable spaces for all students. These environments are a major focus of physics students' experiences, involving a complex interplay of instruction, curricular activities, and social interactions. In physics- and astronomy-focused learning environments, previous efforts have aimed to address cultural issues through interventions or additional activities, such as by incorporating Indigenous beliefs and practices into astronomy content or by including modules that teach students about systemic bias and microaggressions. However, these efforts are limited by their lack of critical reflection, thus hindering students from practicing skills to problematize the systemic and cultural inequities. Additionally, these strategies can fail to comprehensively transform classroom environments and unintentionally silo these discussions. Here, I present an approach to astronomy education built on a foundation of culturally responsive asset-building, reflection, and connectedness. Students will learn astronomy content, such as about Solar System dynamics through physical modeling and simulations, as well as participate in discussions that problematize cultural norms and develop potential solutions. Students are guided to critically engage with astronomy, and they are empowered to become change agents for making astronomy a more equitable and just discipline. Finally, I explore how approaches like cultural responsiveness represent a potential avenue to truly reinvent and transform physics and astronomy education in a way that allows students to take ownership of their own teaching and learning.

Culturally Responsive Astronomy Education: Using a Critical Lens to Promote Equity and Social Justice

In interviews about land acknowledgements, high school physics teachers expressed a number of different ways they had engaged with Indigenous history after learning about and practicing land acknowledgements in a year-long professional learning community. These different ways included situating Indigenous displacement within sociopolitical inequities, connecting physics to historic and current exploitation of Indigenous lands and people, and identifying ways they could incorporate Indigenous history into their physics education curriculum. Throughout the interviews, teachers expressed how they had always viewed Indigenous history and physics as two separate schools of thoughts, but found through their engagement with Indigenous history that both seemed related. This also led to teachers’ engagement and advocacy in transforming schools to incorporate Indigenous land acknowledgements. Findings from our interviews highlight the importance and need for physics education research to be more inclusive of Indigenous voices and to bring to the forefront Indigenous histories, people, and perspectives. This will help start bridging the gap that continues to exclude Indigenous peoples and communities from the field of physics.

From land acknowledgments to action: highlighting the need to engage with Indigenous history in physics teaching

Prior research shows that gender differences in self-efficacy and test anxiety can predict students’ course performance. Although there has been research that uses test anxiety and self-efficacy to predict student grades, no study to our knowledge has investigated this in the context of low- and high-stakes physics assessments. In this work, we used survey data and grade information to compare the predictive power of self-reported selfefficacy and test anxiety on low-stakes (e.g., homework and quizzes) and high-stakes (e.g., traditional exams) assessment scores in a traditionally taught large introductory physics course. We found that there are gender differences in both self-efficacy and test anxiety, as well as in high-stakes assessment outcomes. There were no gender differences in low-stakes assessment scores. Further, we found that models that control for self-efficacy and/or test anxiety eliminate the predictive power of gender for high-stakes assessment scores. Finally, we found that self-efficacy partially mediates the effect of test anxiety on high-stakes assessment outcomes. These trends suggest that teaching methods that alleviate test anxiety have the potential to create a more equitable learning environment.

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