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BACKGROUND: Large introductory lecture courses are frequently post-secondary students first formal interaction with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Grade outcomes in these courses are often disparate across student populations, which, in turn, has implications for student retention. This study positions such disparities as a manifestation of systemic inequities along the dimensions of sex, race/ethnicity, income, and first-generation status and investigates the extent to which they are similar across peer institutions. RESULTS: We examined grade outcomes in a selected set of early STEM courses across six large, public, research-intensive universities in the United States over ten years. In this sample of more than 200,000 STEM course enrollments, we find that course grade benefits increase significantly with the number of systemic advantages students possess at all six institutions. The observed trends in academic outcomes versus advantage are strikingly similar across universities despite the fact that we did not control for differences in grading practices, contexts, and instructor and student populations. The findings are concerning given that these courses are often students first post-secondary STEM experiences. CONCLUSIONS: STEM course grades are typically lower than those in other disciplines; students taking them often pay grade penalties. The systemic advantages some student groups experience are correlated with significant reductions in these grade penalties at all six institutions. The consistency of these findings across institutions and courses supports the claim that inequities in STEM education are a systemic problem, driven by factors that go beyond specific courses or individual institutions. Our work provides a basis for the exploration of contexts where inequities are exacerbated or reduced and can be used to advocate for structural change within STEM education. To cultivate more equitable learning environments, we must reckon with how pervasive structural barriers in STEM courses negatively shape the experiences of marginalized students. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40594-024-00474-7.

Students' self-efficacy, interest, and perceived recognition from others in a given field have been shown to be very important for the development of their identity in that field, which is a critical predictor of students' major and career decisions. Prior research suggests that students' self-efficacy and interest play an important role in their engagement, performance, and persistence in STEM fields. However, very little has been investigated about the role of perceived recognition and validation by instructors on students' self-efficacy and interest. Moreover, prior quantitative studies show that women often report a lower level of physics-perceived recognition, self-efficacy, and interest. In this study, we analyzed data from individual interviews with 38 female students to investigate their learning experiences in physics courses to obtain a qualitative understanding of the factors that shape their self-efficacy and interest. The results reveal that many interviewed women experienced negative perceived recognition or lack of positive recognition from their physics instructors or teaching assistants (TAs), which fell into three categories: feeling belittled for questions or efforts, feeling negatively recognized regarding abilities and potential, and feeling marginalized due to differential gender dynamics. In contrast, only a few interviewed women reported positive perceived recognition from instructors or TAs, which included recognition of abilities, encouragement to pursue goals, and acknowledgment of the normality of struggles. We find that positive perceived recognition enhanced students' self-efficacy and interest, while negative perceived recognition or lack of positive recognition undermined them. These findings provide valuable insights for physics educators to improve their interactions with students by providing positive recognition and validation. Our research also suggests that it is important for instructors or TAs to internalize that it is not their intentions that matter but the impact they are having on their students.

We investigated students' physics motivational beliefs including their physics self-efficacy, interest, perceived recognition, and identity in a traditionally taught two-semester college calculus-based introductory physics sequence (referred to as physics 1 and physics 2). We studied whether and how these motivational beliefs evolve in this course sequence in terms of the average scores and the predictive relationships among them. The results show that both female and male students' physics self-efficacy and interest decreased from physics 1 to physics 2, while there was no statistically significant change in students' perceived recognition and identity. We found signatures of an inequitable and noninclusive learning environment in that not only was there a gender difference in students' motivational beliefs disadvantaging women, but the gender difference in perceived recognition increased from physics 1 to physics 2. We used structural equation modeling (SEM) to investigate the predictive relationships among students' motivational beliefs in physics 1 and physics 2. Analysis revealed that perceived recognition from others, e.g., instructors and teaching assistants, was the largest predictor of physics identity in both courses, and the role played by perceived recognition was even more important in physics 2 for predicting identity and mediating the gender difference in self-efficacy. Our findings suggest that perceived recognition is very important for the development of students' physics identity in both physics 1 and 2. However, female students feel less recognized in the current learning environment and this gender difference grows from physics 1 to physics 2. Instructors should be trained to create an equitable and inclusive learning environment, in which all students feel recognized and supported appropriately and develop a stronger physics self-efficacy, interest, and identity.

We discuss an investigation of students' motivational beliefs and performance on the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) in a calculus-based introductory physics course at a large public university in the U.S. We investigated how students' perception of the inclusiveness of the learning environment (including perceived recognition, perceived effectiveness of peer interaction, and sense of belonging) predicts students' FCI scores and physics motivational beliefs (including self-efficacy, interest, and overall physics identity) at the end of the course after controlling for students' high school performance and their FCI scores and motivational beliefs at the beginning of the course. We find signatures of noninclusive learning environment in that female students' mean scores in physics motivational beliefs and perception of the inclusiveness of the learning environment were lower than male students', and the gender gap in students'self-efficacy increased from the beginning to the end of the course. Using structural equation modeling, we find that the gender differences in students' motivational beliefs and FCI scores were mediated by the different components of students' perception of the inclusiveness of the learning environment. In particular, students' perceived recognition, e.g., by instructors, was an important predictor of their overall physics identity, and their sense of belonging predicted their self-efficacy and FCI scores. Our findings can be valuable for contemplating guidelines for creating an inclusive learning environment in which all students can excel.

In this paper, we provide examples of interactions with instructors that women in physics courses find condescending or intimidating based upon data from individual interviews with women in physics courses. We also provide some examples of interactions in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) courses that women found validating. Instructors should contemplate on these findings to make the learning environment inclusive and center the experiences of students, e.g., women, who have traditionally been marginalized in physics and do not have role models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students' motivational beliefs about physics can influence their learning outcomes as well as retention in their majors and career choices. Moreover, due to societal stereotypes and biases about who belongs in physics and can succeed in physics, women often have lower motivational beliefs about physics than men. The expectancy-value theory emphasizes the importance of self-efficacy and value in predicting students' short- and long-term academic and professional outcomes, but there are few studies focusing on how the learning environment shapes these motivational beliefs of women and men. Investigating how the perception of learning environment in introductory physics courses for the engineering, physical science, and mathematics majors in their first year of college predicts the motivational beliefs of women and men can be useful in making the learning environments equitable and inclusive so that the underrepresented students, e.g., women, are not disadvantaged. In this study, we adapt prior identity framework to investigate how the learning environment (including sense of belonging, perceived peer interaction, and perceived recognition) predicts students' physics self-efficacy, interest, and identity by controlling for their self-efficacy and interest at the beginning of a calculus-based introductory physics course. We surveyed 1203 students, 35% of whom identified as women. We found signatures of inequitable and non-inclusive learning environment in that not only were female students' physics self-efficacy and interest lower than male students' at the beginning of the course, but the gender gaps in these motivational constructs became even larger by the end of the course. Analysis revealed that the decrease in students' physics self-efficacy and interest were mediated by the learning environment and predicted students' physics identity. We find that the perceived recognition played a major role in predicting students' physics identity, and students' sense of belonging in physics played an important role in explaining the change in students' physics self-efficacy.

Physics has historically been portrayed as a field for brilliant men. Many prior studies have focused on the reasons for women's underrepresentation in physics and related disciplines from different perspectives and strategies to improve the learning environments so that all students can excel in physics courses. Due to societal stereotypes, women often have significantly lower physics self-efficacy than men even when they perform similarly, and many shy away from physics-related majors and careers. Moreover, being recognized by the instructor as a student who can excel in physics can be valuable for all students in physics courses. However, it is particularly important for underrepresented students, including women and ethnic and racial minorities, partly due to the societal stereotypes associated with who can excel in physics and lack of role models.