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 European Journal of Physics
Eur. J. Phys. 44 (2023) 025701 (18pp) https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6404/aca29e

The relationship between gender and

academic performance in undergraduate
physics students: the role of physics
identity, perceived recognition, and self-
efficacy
Ewan Bottomley1,2,∗ , Antje Kohnle1, Kenneth I Mavor2,
Paula J Miles2 and Vivienne Wild1
1
School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St. Andrews, United Kingdom
2
School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St. Andrews, United
Kingdom

E-mail: [email protected]

Received 23 March 2022, revised 27 October 2022

Accepted for publication 11 November 2022
Published 26 December 2022

Keywords: physics identity, gender, self-efficacy, perceived recognition as a

physicist, academic performance

(Some figures may appear in colour only in the online journal)

Abstract

Studies focusing on physics undergraduate students have found that women tend not to
identify as strongly with physics, compared to men. Recent research has examined potential
factors that influence the experience of women in physics. Several of these factors, such as
students’ beliefs in their ability to complete physics-based tasks (i.e., self-efficacy) and stu-
dents’ belief that others perceive them as a physicist (i.e., perceived recognition), have been
associated with physics identity in the context of introductory university physics courses in
the United States (US). The current study extends this previous work, surveying students at
all levels of the undergraduate degree at a research-intensive university in the UK. Students
were asked about their physics identity, physics self-efficacy, and the extent to which they
∗
Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed.

Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the
author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.

© 2022 European Physical Society

0143-0807/23/025701+18$33.00 Printed in the UK 1
Eur. J. Phys. 44 (2023) 025701 E Bottomley et al

believed others perceived them as physicists. The survey responses were then matched with
students’ grades. Using matched responses from the start and end of an academic year from
169 students (110 men, 59 women), two analyses were performed. The first analysis found
that average scores for women for physics identity and self-efficacy were lower than for men
both at the start and end of the academic year. The second analysis found that after controlling
for the start-of-year scores in physics identity, self-efficacy, and perceived recognition,
students’ mid-year grades significantly predicted variance in their end-of-year scores for self-
efficacy, perceived recognition, and (possibly also) physics identity. This study also found
that the gap in perceived recognition between men and women increased over the academic
year. The results contribute to understanding potential barriers for women in physics and have
implications for instruction in terms of promoting students' physics identity, self-efficacy, and
perceived recognition.

Introduction

The lived experience of women in the undergraduate physics classroom can be very different
from the experience of men. Societal expectations and stereotypes can facilitate negative
experiences for women e.g. [1]. Moreover, the negative experiences that women face can
undermine their identity as scientists [2]. At the university level, students’ sense of identi-
fication with their discipline of study may be important to their academic outcomes, with
discipline identity predicting students’ willingness to continue to study their chosen subject in
the future e.g. [3] and the approaches they take to their learning [4]. This is problematic as
recent research at the introductory undergraduate level in the US has suggested that women
do not identify with physics as a discipline to the same extent as men, in part, due to women
having lower self-efficacy (i.e. being less confident in their abilities to perform physics tasks)
and having lower perceived recognition (i.e. not feeling as recognized as a physicist) [5, 6].
However, how physics identity relates to academic performance at the university level has
been sparsely studied, particularly outside of the US education system. As such, the current
study aims to investigate the gender differences in physics identity, self-efficacy, and per-
ceived recognition as a physicist, across all levels of the undergraduate degree at a UK
institution. We also aim to examine whether academic performance can predict these factors.

Gender framework
In the text that follows we discuss the concept of gender in relation to comparisons between
men and women. We have focused on men and women as they were the only genders for
which we could collect a big enough sample to adequately power our analyses, and this
reflects the distinction of long-standing concern in terms of women’s participation in physics.
It is not possible to draw conclusions from our data from the small numbers of non-binary
identified participants. The evolving experience of those students identifying as non-binary is
an interesting question for future research but is beyond the scope of the current paper.

Gender and physics identity

In their influential paper, Hazari, Sonnert, Sadler, and Shanahan [7] examined physics identity
in a sample of students in their first year of college. The students were asked to reflect on their
high school experiences and complete a survey measuring their identification with physics as
a discipline. Hazari and colleagues found that the students that reported greater physics
identity were more likely to indicate that they wanted to follow a physics-related career path

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Eur. J. Phys. 44 (2023) 025701 E Bottomley et al

in the future. However, when examining physics identity by gender, Hazari and colleagues
showed that women reported significantly lower physics identity than men. Therefore, the
authors concluded that women would be less likely than men to follow a physics career
pathway as they do not identify with physics as a discipline to the same extent as men. This
suggests that the under-representation of women in physics may be a product of women’s
relatively low physics identity.
Following this, physics education researchers began to examine the factors that form
physics identity. Kalender and colleagues [6] highlighted several factors which may con-
tribute to gendered patterns in the formation of physics identity in introductory university
physics courses, in particular, physics self-efficacy and perceived recognition as a physicist.
Specifically, two of the many factors that they suggest are contributing to women’s lower
physics identity are physics self-efficacy (a students’ belief in their abilities to complete
physics-based tasks) and perceived recognition as a physicist. With regards to self-efficacy,
there is a large body of literature that suggests that women are generally not as confident in
their abilities in physics e.g. [8–10]. For instance, Marshman and colleagues [11] found that
women who were achieving an A-level grade in an introductory college physics course had
similar levels of self-efficacy as men who were achieving a C-level grade. This is problematic
as physics self-efficacy has been shown to predict levels of physics identity [6]. Therefore,
gender disparity in self-efficacy may be contributing to the gender difference in physics
identity.
The extent to which university students feel recognized as a physicist by others is also
important for the formation of physics identity [5, 6, 12, 13]. Kalender and colleagues [5]
showed that students’ beliefs that their friends, family, and instructors saw them as a physicist
was associated with greater interest in physics, competency beliefs, and physics identity. In
their study, they found that men reported greater perceived recognition as a physicist than
women. As such, Kalender and colleagues concluded that perceived recognition as a phy-
sicist, much like self-efficacy, potentially contributes to the gender differences in physics
identity.

Academic performance and students’ perceptions

University students’ identification with their discipline of study has been related to their
academic performance e.g. [3, 14, 15]. Seyranian and colleagues [16] examined this rela-
tionship in an introductory college physics course. They asked students to complete a survey
at the beginning and at the end of the course measuring students’ sense of belonging and
physics identity. The results showed that men tended to report greater belonging and physical
identity than women. Students who reported more physics identity tended to earn better
grades. Moreover, the students that performed better in their exams generally reported more
physics identity at the end of the academic year. Thus, Seyranian and colleagues concluded
that there was a bidirectional relationship between physics identity and academic
performance.
There is a large body of work examining the relationship between self-efficacy and aca-
demic performance e.g. [17, 18]. In particular, Kalender and colleagues [6] hypothesize that
the relationship between self-efficacy and academic performance may be similarly bidirec-
tional, in what they describe as a ‘feedback loop’. They argue that students who are more
confident in their abilities tend to get better grades, and better grades will encourage the
students to be more confident in their abilities. However, Kalender and colleagues [6] did not
directly examine this relationship. Such a feedback loop would be problematic if it exists as
gender disparity in physics identity and self-efficacy may result in lower academic

3
Eur. J. Phys. 44 (2023) 025701 E Bottomley et al

performance for women, which may, in turn, negatively impact women’s sense of self-
efficacy and physics identity in the future.
Despite the conjecture around potential feedback loops, recent work by Whitcomb and
Singh [19] suggests that physics students’ academic performance in the introductory years of
study is not predictive of the students’ academic performance at more advanced levels of the
undergraduate degree. They used structural equation modelling to demonstrate that gender
differences do emerge in the grades of introductory level physics students, with men tending
to perform slightly better, but that the introductory physics grades a student received did not
predict the grades the student received later in their academic trajectory. The authors posit that
women’s desire to continue with physics may be impacted by their relatively lower grades at
an early stage. What remains unclear is whether a physics students’ academic performance
predicts their perceptions in physics (e.g. their physics identity, self-efficacy, perceived
recognition), which may contribute to women not continuing their physics career. Therefore,
this study aims to examine the relationship between grades and student’s motivational factors
in undergraduate physics.

Study overview
The study presented here aimed to build on the work of Kalender and colleagues [5, 6],
Whitcomb and Singh [19], and Seyranian and colleagues [15] by investigating gender dif-
ferences in physics identity, self-efficacy, and perceived recognition and the association these
factors may have with academic performance across all levels of the undergraduate physics
degree in a UK context. Our study aimed to address the following two research questions:
(1) Are there gender differences in self-efficacy, perceived recognition and physics identity,
and do they persist across the academic year?
(2) Does academic performance predict self-efficacy, perceived recognition and physics
identity in the following semester?
We conducted two analyses, each addressing one of these research questions. Whilst
previous studies have predominantly investigated students’ experience of physics in the US at
the high school or introductory university level where only a minority of the students in these
courses intended to pursue physics, the study presented here focuses on physics majors in the
UK from the introductory to the advanced undergraduate level. Due to the longitudinal nature
of our study, we were also able to investigate whether academic performance predicted self-
efficacy, perceived recognition and physics identity (RQ2) in the following semester.

Study methodology

Participants and data collection

Participants were undergraduate students with degree intentions in physics (including joint
degrees, such as mathematics and physics) at a small, selective, research-intensive university
in the UK. Participants were recruited across all levels of the degree program, including the
integrated Masters level. In what follows, we use ‘level’ and ‘level of study’ to denote the
progression through the degree program, ranging from level 1 (introductory) to level 5
(integrated Masters); we use ‘year’ to denote the academic year of data collection, and we use
‘timepoint’ to denote the time of the individual rounds of data collection. We also used
‘semester 1 and 2’ to distinguish whether the surveys were collected at the start (semester 1)
or at the end (semester 2) of an academic year. Participants were asked to complete surveys at

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Eur. J. Phys. 44 (2023) 025701 E Bottomley et al

Table 1. A breakdown of the data collection timepoints. In brackets we indicate the

number of surveys used in the matched analysis presented in this paper, as well as the
percentage of responses from women in this analysis.
Number of surveys Percent of responses from women for
Levels completed (used in the completed surveys (surveys used in
Timepoint surveyeda matched analysis) matched analysis)
1 1–5 309 (116) 34.0% (33.6%)
2 1–5 116 (116) 33.6% (33.6%)
3 3 82 (53) 31.7% (37.8%)
4 3 71 (53) 33.8% (37.8%)
5 3 and 4 139 (0) 30.2% (—)
a
Levels surveyed refers to the progression through the degree program, ranging from level 1 (introductory) to level 5
(integrated masters).

one or more timepoints over three academic years. Students completed the surveys in class
and were informed that their participation was voluntary. Excepting one timepoint where the
surveys were completed online, the surveys were completed on paper. In total, data was
collected at five different timepoints: the start of three academic years, and the end of two
academic years.
A total of 449 students completed the survey at one or more of the timepoints. Fourteen
completed surveys were removed as the survey did not include an identifier to match grades
and gender information. We only wanted to focus on physics majors, so all participants for
whom physics was not their primary or joint degree were removed (n = 42). This left a
remaining sample of 393 participants, with 717 completed surveys in total. A breakdown of
surveys completed by timepoint and gender is shown in table 1. Excepting for timepoint 2
(where data was collected online), participation was high, with ∼60% to ∼100% of physics
majors in each level of study completing the survey. For timepoint 2, ∼15% to ∼50% of
physics majors in each level completed the study. While students at all levels were surveyed
at timepoints 1 and 2, only students at level 3 (and in one case also level 4) were surveyed at
timepoints 3–5. This was on the one hand due to practical limitations in terms of class time
needing to be available for survey completion. On the other hand, level 3 is pivotal in terms of
students’ trajectory towards a BSc or integrated Masters degree, as the two pathways diverge
after this level. Thus, this was also a level of particular interest.
For the study presented here, we focused on a subset of the data from timepoints 1–4,
namely matched students with data from both the start and end of a single academic year (i.e.
timepoints 1 and 2, or timepoints 3 and 4, see section ‘Analysis Overview’). This included
169 students (110 men, 59 women, two surveys per student). As this may plausibly be a
biased sample of students positively inclined to complete both surveys, we precede each
analysis with results from the largest sample at timepoint 1. This timepoint surveyed ca. 80%
of the total student population of physics majors.

Survey measures

In what follows, where we use a related set of questions to measure a construct, we estimate
internal reliability using Cronbach’s alpha [20]. This allows us to gain an understanding of the
internal consistency of the items we have used. A Cronbach’s alpha typically ranges from 0
(no internal consistency) to 1 (complete internal consistency). The mathematical formula for
the calculation of this statistic is:

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Eur. J. Phys. 44 (2023) 025701 E Bottomley et al

a = N * C /(V + (N - 1) * C ) ,

where N = the number of items; C = the mean covariance between the items; and V = the
mean item variance. The measure assumes that the scale in consideration is unidimensional
and therefore, the larger the value, the more the variance in the items that are shared with
other items and on average shows consistency in the thing being measured. The lower
acceptable bound for internal reliability tends to be considered around .70 (see [21]). In the
sections below we quote Cronbach’s alpha for timepoint 1 only as a measure of internal
reliability of the dataset, as this timepoint comprised the largest number of participants and
therefore gives the best estimate of the reliability of the dataset.
All survey items were measured on a seven-point Likert Scale (1 = not at all/strongly
disagree, 7 = very much so/strongly agree), excluding the self-efficacy measure at timepoints
1 and 2 which was measured on a five-point Likert Scale. A transformation was used on these
timepoints such that we could compare self-efficacy across timepoints.

Physics identity
To measure physics identity, we used a single item from Hazari and colleagues’ [7] Physics
Identity Survey. This item reads: ‘do you see yourself as a physics person?’. This item has
been used in several studies e.g. [5, 6], and was found to be a good proxy for overall physics
identity e.g. [22].

Perceived recognition as a physicist from others

Perceived recognition as a physicist from others was also measured using the Physics Identity
Survey [7]. This measure consisted of three items: ‘do your physics teachers/instructors see
you as a physics person?’; ‘do your parents/relatives/friends see you as a physics person?’;
and ‘do your friends seek your advice/input in physics-related problems/discussions?’. The
Cronbach’s alpha for the timepoint 1 dataset was .717.

Self-efficacy

To measure self-efficacy, we used the Global Self-Efficacy measure of the Physics Self-
Efficacy Questionnaire [23]. This measure included four items (Cronbach’s alpha timepoint
1 = .744): ‘I will remain calm in my physics exam because I know I will have the knowledge
to solve the problems’; ‘I generally manage to solve difficult physics problems if I try hard
enough’; ‘I know I can stick to my aims and accomplish my goals in physics’; and ‘I know I
can pass the physics exam if I put in enough work during the semester’.

Academic performance
Students’ academic performance was measured using their physics credit-weighted mean
grade data for each semester. Grade information and gender was added to the surveys prior to
anonymizing the data for analysis. Given that students were surveyed across all levels of the
degree programme from the introductory to the Masters level, we used grades rather than
standardized diagnostic instruments (such as the Force Concept Inventory) to measure aca-
demic performance. While individual courses may vary slightly in their mean grade, and there
is variation in which courses students take at the more advanced levels, grades in the UK are
measured on a common scale that takes UK degree classifications into account. Thus, mean
grades are similar across the courses and levels. Please note that we use the terms academic
performance and grades interchangeably throughout.

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Eur. J. Phys. 44 (2023) 025701 E Bottomley et al

For the study presented here the measure of academic performance was the credit-
weighted mean for the semester; therefore, the measure was calculated at the end of the
semester. For RQ1 we used the credit-weighted mean score for the first (mid-year) and second
(end-of-year) semesters; however, for RQ2 we used only the mid-year credit-weighted mean.

Analysis overview
To examine the gender differences relating to RQ1 and the associations between grades and
students’ perceptions in RQ2, we used a sample that consisted of the students who responded
to the survey at both the start and end of a single academic year. This allowed us to examine
gender differences, differences in perceptions over time, and the effect of mid-year grades on
perceptions. In the cases in which we had missing data, we used listwise deletion. This means
that we only used the data of the participants that responded to all the survey items. A total of
169 students (110 men, 59 women) completed the survey at both the beginning and end of an
academic year. Ten of these participants responded at the start/end of two academic years, so
their second response was removed in order to ensure independence of measures.
To address RQ1 on gender differences between the constructs, we ran a series of 2
(gender: men versus women) × 2 (semester: semester 1 versus semester 2) ANOVAs (ana-
lysis of variable). This test examines the variance amongst and between groups to assess if
there are significant differences between the means e.g. [24].
To examine whether academic performance is associated with physics identity, perceived
recognition, or self-efficacy in the following semester (RQ2), we used a series of multiple
regressions. This allowed us to see how much variance in the semester 2 scores is explained
by the mid-year academic performance of students. The first step is to assess whether a
student’s semester 1 perception of, for example, self-efficacy predicts their perceptions of
self-efficacy in the following semester. This is achieved by fitting a linear regression line. The
regression equation for this model is:
Y ¢ = M + b1 * X1,
where Y′ = the predicted outcome (in our example case, predicted self-efficacy at semester 2);
M = the Y intercept (the value of Y when everything else is considered 0); β1 = the regression
coefficient associated with (in the case of our example) self-efficacy; X1 = the measured self-
efficacy score at semester 1.
The next step is to add academic performance as an additional variable. This regression
equation reads:
Y ¢ = M + b1 * X1 + b 2 * X2 ,
where β2 = the regression coefficient for the variable academic performance; and X2 is the
observed mid-year academic performance. We can then assess whether the second model,
with academic performance, is a better fit for our data than the first model without academic
performance. If so, we can conclude that academic performance does predict the semester 2
perception (e.g. of self-efficacy), beyond that of the semester 1 perception.

Results

RQ1: gender differences

Timepoint 1 dataset. The matched dataset of 169 students (110 men, 59 women), consisting
of students that responded both at the start and end of an academic session, is only a subset of
the full dataset (see table 1), Therefore, we first checked global trends in gender differences

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Eur. J. Phys. 44 (2023) 025701 E Bottomley et al

Figure 1. Mean scores in physics identity, perceived recognition, and self-efficacy for
men and women using the full timepoint 1 dataset s(n = 309, 204 men, 105 women).
‘ID’ represents physics identity and ‘Perceived recog.’ represents perceived recognition
as a physicist. Error bars are 95% confidence intervals on the mean. * Represents
significant differences.

Table 2. The results of independent sample Mann–Whitney U tests from the first
timepoint (n = 309, 204 men, 105 women). The p-value, and the means for men and
women are reported. Significant results are highlighted in bold. Scores of perceptions
were on a 7-point Likert Scale. At timepoint 1, self-efficacy was originally measured on
a 5-point scale but has been adjusted to a 7-point scale for comparison.
Variable p-statistic Mean men Mean women

ID .016* 5.27 4.92

Self-efficacy .010* 5.48 5.20
Perceived recognition .130 5.32 5.17
*
p < .05.
**
p < .01.

using the full sample from timepoint 1 (309 students, 204 men, 105 women). This timepoint
surveyed ca. 80% of the total student population of physics majors. To examine whether there
were gender differences in the timepoint 1 sample, we ran Mann–Whitney U tests (see
figure 1 and table 2). Mann–Whitney U tests rather than t-tests were used as the data in this
sample was not normally distributed. The results demonstrated that there were significant
gender differences in physics identity and self-efficacy, with men reporting more physics
identity and self-efficacy than women. Men also received slightly higher grades than women.
No significant differences emerged between men and women with regards to perceived
recognition.

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Eur. J. Phys. 44 (2023) 025701 E Bottomley et al

Figure 2. Mean scores in physics identity, perceived recognition, and self-efficacy for
men (n = 110) and women (n = 59) in the matched sample, at the start (semester 1) and
end (semester 2) of an academic year. ‘ID’ represents physics identity and ‘Perceived
recog.’ represents perceived recognition as a physicist. Error bars are 95% confidence
intervals on the mean.

Matched dataset
In what follows, we now only consider the matched dataset from the start and end of an
academic session (n = 169, 110 men, 59 women). To investigate gender differences between
the constructs over time we ran a series of 2 (gender: men/women) ×2 (semester: semester 1/
semester 2) ANOVAs as described in the ‘Analysis overview’ section. We quote the esti-
mated marginal means (M) and standard errors (S.E.) for each sample. To assess the ratio of
the variances we quote the F-test. As F increases, there is increasing evidence for difference
between sample means. To measure the statistical significance of this, we report the p-value.
To quantify how much the samples differ we cite partial eta-squared effect sizes (η2p). This is
the proportion of variance accounted for by an independent variable, controlling for the
effects of all other independent variables and interactions on the dependent variable. All effect
sizes for samples with statistically significant differences were medium (.06–.013) or large
( 0.14) size. Figure 2 shows the mean scores in physics identity, perceived recognition, and
self-efficacy for men and women at the start and end of an academic year.

Physics identity
The results of our ANOVA revealed that there were significant differences between men and
women with regards to their reported physics identity, F(1,167) = 16.50, p < .001, η2p =.090.
Examination of the estimated marginal means revealed that men (M = 5.39, S.E. = .12)
reported greater physics identity than women (M = 4.56, S.E. = .16). With regards to within-
person effects, there was a significant main effect of time, F(1,167) = 17.87, p < .001,
η2p = .097. Students reported significantly more physics identity in semester 1 (M = 5.19,

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Eur. J. Phys. 44 (2023) 025701 E Bottomley et al

Table 3. The Pearson correlations between the variables (above the diagonal) for the
full dataset at timepoint 1 (309 students, 204 men, 105 women).
ID Self-efficacy Perceived recognition Grades
** **
ID 1 .417 .595 .093
Self-efficacy 1 .453** .125*
Perceived recognition 1 .186*
Grades 1

S.E.= .11) than in semester 2 (M = 4.76, S.E. = .12). However, there was no significant
interaction between semester and gender, F(1, 167) = .17, p = .683.

Self-efficacy
As with physics identity, there were significant differences between reported self-efficacy
between men and women, F(1,167) = 21.83, p < .001, η2p = .116, with men (M = 5.60, S.
E. = .08) reporting more self-efficacy than women (M = 4.97, S.E. = .11). There was also a
significant difference between semester 1 and semester 2, F(1,167) = 34.32, p < .001, η2p
= .170. The estimates revealed that students reported more self-efficacy in semester 1
(M = 5.49, S.E. = .06) than in semester 2 (M = 5.08, S.E. = .09). Again, the interaction
between gender and semester was non-significant, F(1, 167) = .28, p = .600.

Perceived recognition as a physicist

The results revealed that there was a significant gender difference with regards to students’
perceived recognition as a physicist, F(1, 167) = 8.68 p = .004, η2p = .049. The estimated
marginal means revealed that men (M = 5.46, S.E .= .10) reported greater perceived
recognition as a physicist than women (M = 4.96, S.E. = .14). There was also a significant
main effect of the semester, F(1, 167) = 27.29, p < .001, η2p = .140, with students reporting
greater perceived recognition at semester 1 (M = 5.40, S.E. = .08) compared to semester 2
(M = 5.02, S.E. = .10). There was also a significant interaction between gender and semester,
F(1, 167) = 5.06, p = .026, η2p = .029. Examination of the simple main effects revealed that
the difference in perceived recognition between men and women was larger in semester 2
(difference between means = .662, p = .001) than in semester 1 (difference between
means = .332, p = .046). Women’s perceived recognition decreased between semester 1 and
semester 2, whereas men’s stayed relatively constant (see figure 2).

Academic performance
The results revealed marginally significant gender differences in academic performance, F(1,
167) = 4.38, p = .038, η2p = .026, with men achieving slightly higher grades than women.
There was a significant main effect of the semester, F(1, 167) = 17.48, p < .001, η2p = .095,
with students tending to perform better in semester 2 than in semester 1. There was no
significant interaction between semester and gender, F(1, 167) = .090, p = .765.

RQ2: grades as a predictor of student perceptions

We determined Pearson correlations between the variables both in the matched sample and
the full dataset from timepoint 1, in order to check global trends. Correlations for the full
dataset from timepoint 1 (309 students, 204 men, 105 women) are shown in table 3. Cor-
relations between the variables for the matched dataset (169 students, 110 men, 59 women)

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Table 4. The Pearson correlations between the variables for the matched sample in
semester 1 (above the diagonal) and semester 2 (below the diagonal).
ID Self-efficacy Perceived recognition Grades
** **
ID 1 .471 .675 .239**
Self-efficacy .516** 1 .449** .202*
Perceived recognition .615** .554** 1 .326**
Grades .196* .294** .287** 1
*
p < .05.
**
p < .01.

are shown in table 4, with start-of-year correlations above the diagonal and end-of-year
correlations below the diagonal. Tables 3 and 4 show that the correlations between self-
efficacy, perceived recognition and academic performance were significant and show similar
trends, with similar correlations observed in each dataset. However, the relationship between
physics identity and grades was non-significant for the full sample from timepoint 1, but
significant for the matched sample, which indicates that those students who answered both
surveys may not be entirely representative of the full cohort.
To examine whether receiving grade information was associated with students’ physics
identity, perceived recognition as a physicist, and self-efficacy at a later semester (RQ2) we
ran three hierarchical multiple linear regressions. In what follows β is the standardized
regression coefficient, giving the predicted change in units of standard deviations for a one
standard deviation change in the predictor (while controlling for the other predictors). We also
quote the R 2 to quantify the model fit. This is a measure of the proportion of the variance in
the outcome variable that is predicted by the predictor variables. R 2 will range between 0 and
1, where 0 means that the predictor variables predict no variance in the outcome variable, and
1 means the predictor variables predict all the variance in the outcome variable. This pro-
portion is standardized such that it can also be transferred into a percentage of the variance
explained, such that an R 2 of .23 is the equivalent of 23% of the overall variance in the
outcome variable being explained by the model.
For physics identity, we included physics identity in the first semester as a control in the
regression model (Model 1, see table 5). The second regression model additionally included
the grade data between semesters 1 and 2 (Model 2). The outcome variable was physics
identity in the second semester (see section ‘Analysis Overview’ for further details of the
models). Unsurprisingly, physics identity in semester 1 predicted identity in semester 2 (for
full results see table 5). This was reflected in the standardized coefficient (see β1, Model 1 in
table 5). The addition of the grade data in Model 2 marginally improved the model fit (p-
value = .048 for β2 in Model 2). The Delta R 2 for β2 shows that grades predicted 1.4% of the
variance in physics identity in semester 2 after controlling for physics identity in semester 1.
We ran a second hierarchical regression with the first model including perceived recog-
nition in semester 1 predicting perceived recognition in semester 2 (for full results see
table 6). The results revealed that perceived recognition in semester 1 predicted perceived
recognition in semester 2, reflected in the standardized coefficient (see β1, Model 1 in table 6).
The inclusion of grades in Model 2 significantly improved the fit (see p-value for β2, Model 2,
in table 6). The Delta R 2 shows that grades predicted 4.8% of the variance in perceived
recognition as a physicist in semester 2, beyond that explained by perceived recognition in
semester 1.
This process was repeated with self-efficacy. Self-efficacy in semester 1 predicted self-
efficacy in semester 2 (for full results see table 7). The standardized coefficient was also

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 Eur. J. Phys. 44 (2023) 025701
Table 5. The results of the model for physics identity and grades in semester 1 predicting physics identity in semester 2.

Outcome variable: physics identity semester 2

Model 1: physics identity semester 1
Y = M + β1X1
Model 2: physics identity and grades semester 1
Y = M + β1X1+ β2X2
12

Change in F Degrees of Significance of change in F Standardized regression

Model Predictor statistic freedom (p-value) coefficient: β R2

1 (β1) Physics identity 110.81 1,167 <.001 .632 Fit = .399

semester 1
2 (β1) Physics identity 110.81 1,167 <.001 .605 Fit = .399
semester 1
2 (β2) Grades 3.981 1,166 .048 .122 Delta fit = .014

E Bottomley et al
 Eur. J. Phys. 44 (2023) 025701
Table 6. The results of the models, for perceived recognition as a physicist and grades in semester 1 predicting perceived recognition as a physicist
in semester 2.
Outcome variable: perceived recognition semester 2
Model 1: perceived recognition semester 1
Y = M + β1X1
Model 2: perceived recognition semester 1 and grades
Y = M + β1X1+ β2X2
13

Change in F Degrees of Significance of change in F Standardized regression

Model Predictor statistic freedom (p-value) coefficient: β R2

1(β1) Perceived recog. 164.21 1167 <.001 .704 Fit = .493

semester 1
2 (β1) Perceived recog. 164.21 1167 <.001 .629 Fit = .493
semester 1
2 (β2) Grades 17.59 1166 <.001 .232 Delta Fit = .048

E Bottomley et al
 Eur. J. Phys. 44 (2023) 025701
Table 7. The results of the models for self-efficacy and grades in semester 1 predicting self-efficacy in semester 2.

Outcome variable: self-efficacy semester 2

Model 1: self-efficacy semester 1
Y = M + β1X1
Model 2: self-efficacy semester 1 and grades
Y = M + β1X1+ β2X2
14

Change in F Degrees of Significance of change in F Standardized regression

Model Predictor statistic freedom (p-value) coefficient: β R2

1 (β1) Self-efficacy seme- 115.78 1,167 <.001 .640 Fit = .409

ster 1
2 (β1) Self-efficacy seme- 115.78 1,167 <.001 .581 Fit = .409
ster 1
2 (β2) Grades 26.05 1,166 <.001 .289 Delta fit = .080

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Eur. J. Phys. 44 (2023) 025701 E Bottomley et al

significant. The addition of grade data in Model 2 significantly improved the model fit (see
table 7, the p-value for Model 2, β2). This suggests that the grades account for 8.0% of the
variance in reported self-efficacy in semester 2, over and above that explained by self-efficacy
in semester 1.
In summary, the results for RQ2 show that students’ grades at the end of semester 1
significantly predict reported levels in semester 2 of self-efficacy, perceived recognition as a
physicist, and marginal physics identity, over and above the students’ reported levels in
semester 1.

Discussion

This study revealed three main findings from the matched dataset. Firstly, there are gender
differences in physics identity and self-efficacy that persist across the year, with men tending
to report higher scores than women (RQ1). Secondly, gender differences in perceived
recognition as a physicist increased from semester 1 to semester 2 (RQ1). Finally, we found
that mid-year grades predict students’ perceptions of self-efficacy, perceived recognition and
possibly physics identity in semester 2 (RQ2).
In more detail, the first analysis found gender differences in physics identity and self-
efficacy, with men on average reporting greater physics identity and self-efficacy compared to
women at both the start and end of the academic year for the matched dataset, as well as for
the full dataset at timepoint 1 (the start of the academic year). Whilst the results of the Mann–
Whitney U test for the full dataset at timepoint 1 did not find significant gender differences in
perceived recognition as a physicist, the analysis using the matched dataset examining per-
ceived recognition over time found significant gender differences, with the gender gap being
larger at the end of the academic session than at the start. There were significant gender
differences in academic performance for the full dataset at timepoint 1 and a small, yet
significant main effect of gender on academic performance for the matched dataset. In the
matched dataset as a whole, physics identity, self-efficacy and perceived recognition average
scores were seen to decrease from the start to the end of the year.
The second analysis (to address RQ2) used several linear regressions to test whether mid-
year grades predicted students’ perceptions in semester 2 (the end of the academic year). The
results showed that academic performance in semester 1 was associated with self-efficacy and
perceived recognition in semester 2, with 8.0% of the variance in self-efficacy and 4.8% of
the variance in perceived recognition explained by the mid-year grades, after controlling for
self-efficacy and perceived recognition in semester 1. A more marginal result using the same
analysis was found for physics identity, with 1.4% of the variance in semester 2 explained by
the mid-year grades, after controlling for physics identity in semester 1. However, the analysis
using the full dataset at timepoint 1 (the start of the academic year) did not find a significant
correlation between physics identity and academic performance (see table 3). Thus, the
regression result for physics identity is tentative, given the inconsistency in the relationship
between physics identity and academic performance between the full timepoint 1 dataset and
the matched dataset.
This study found that self-efficacy and perceived recognition correlated with students’
grades (see tables 3 and 4) and that grades predicted students’ self-efficacy and perceived
recognition in the following semester (see tables 6 and 7). Kalender and colleagues [6] had
suggested feedback loops between self-efficacy, perceived recognition, and grades. Our
results are consistent with reciprocal correlational relationships (with the correlations sug-
gesting associations at timepoint 1 and the regressions suggesting grades predict these factors

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Eur. J. Phys. 44 (2023) 025701 E Bottomley et al

over time) between self-efficacy and grades, and perceived recognition and grades. However,
it is important to stress that our results are only correlational and we cannot draw causal
conclusions.
If such feedback loops exist, they may be particularly problematic when considering
perceived recognition, given that we also found an interaction between gender and semester
in the ANOVA addressing RQ1, with the perceived recognition gap between men and women
widening from the beginning to the end of the academic year. We did not have the statistical
power to run the regression analyses separately for men and women. This could be important
future work, in terms of assessing whether grades predict perceived recognition and self-
efficacy in the following semester differently for men and women. The matched dataset only
spanned a single academic session and has some selection bias in terms of only including
students responding to the survey at both the beginning and end of an academic session.
Future work could investigate how grades correlate with each of self-efficacy, perceived
recognition and physics identity over a longer time period using a fully representative sample
of students.
The results from RQ1 align with previous studies on gender differences in self-efficacy
e.g. [8, 9, 25] and physics identity e.g. [7], with men tending to report greater confidence in
their abilities to complete physics-based tasks and greater physics identity. This study extends
these findings to physics majors across all levels of the undergraduate degree in a UK context.
The tentative widening of the gender gap in perceived recognition over the academic year
seen in this study may indicate the important role that instructors can play in impacting
perceived recognition as a physicist [26]. Recent work has shown that a predictor of women’s
physics identity is whether the student feels recognized by the teacher [27, 28]. Wang and
Hazari [27] highlighted that explicit and implicit attempts to make high school students feel
recognized as a physicist can be internalized by students. This can take the form of explicitly
telling students that they are capable of setting up tasks that make the students feel recognized
without explicitly telling them. Our results indicate that this positive reinforcement and
recognition of students may be particularly important across the academic session and that
women, in particular, may benefit from these forms of recognition.

Data availability statement

All data that support the findings of this study are included within the article (and any
supplementary files).

ORCID iDs

Ewan Bottomley https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5472-2426

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