Improving Gender Balance in uptake of physics qualifications aged 16-18:a cluster randomised controlled trial in England

Sam Sims ()
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Sam Sims: UCL Centre for Education Policy & Equalising Opportunities

No 25-17, CEPEO Working Paper Series from UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities

Abstract: The proportion of female students taking up physics qualifications at age 16-18 is far below that of male students and the reasons for this remain somewhat unclear. One possible explanation is that peers, teachers and parents are (perhaps inadvertently) perpetuating gendered stereotypes around subject choice. We study the effects of a whole-school intervention - Improving Gender Balance (IGB) - which aims to counter such stereotypes. A team of experienced IGB coaches worked directly with schools to increase gender balance in the way that all three groups thought and talked about physics and other school subjects. We tested the effects of IGB on uptake of A-level physics among female students using a school-level cluster randomised trial in England. The COVID-19 pandemic caused school closures for around half of the time that the IGB programme was running. We found uptake of A Level physics to be seven percentage points higher in our overall sample (p=0.07). Based on a pre-registered definition of treatment compliance, we found a larger effect (nine percentage points; p=0.046) among the group of schools that persisted with implementation after the first COVID-19 lockdown.

Keywords: physics; gender; subject choice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 I24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2025-12, Revised 2025-12
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https://repec-cepeo.ucl.ac.uk/cepeow/cepeowp25-17.pdf Initial version, 2025 (application/pdf)

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