Evolution of attitudes and motivations of male and female students towards physics and its learning at both high school and engineering university degrees

摘要

The main objectives of this research are, on the hand, to verify by measuring students' attitudes and motivations if gender differences occur towards physics, and on the other hand, to check if an instruction of physics affects in the same way to men and women. The sample is constituted by high school students and students in the first year of engineering that have studied necessarily a physics course during the 2013/2014 school year. Analyzing the results of those 772 students it has been concluded that gender differences are significant at high school where the motivation of female students is especially negative after the instruction. Only one in five students is woman at university, where on the contrary differences between genders are not so significant. In both stages, however, instruction affects more positively to men in their image and interest towards physics and its learning.