Gender Differences in Norwegian Engineering Students’ Understanding of Newtonian Mechanics

Abstract

Abstract An investigation of the gender gap in engineering students’ understanding of Newtonian physics has been done. The results indicate a noticeable gender gap, in addition to an effect due to differences in preparation, i.e. physics courses in secondary school. The gender gap after university instruction decreases in the case of a higher degree of preparation, while the gender gap is unchanged or widens for students with a lower degree of preparation after university instruction.

Keywords

• Concept inventory
• Newtonian mechanics
• gender gap
• physics
• Conceptinventory
• Newtonianmechanics