Monday 8 October 2012

What's putting girls off A level physics?

by Athene Donald via Guardian Education news, comment and analysis

The argument that girls “just don’t like physics” won't wash as an explanation for the miserable A-level statistics in a recent report.
Some shocking figures were released this week in an Institute of Physics (IOP) Report [PDF 24pp] looking at the progression of girls going on to study A-level physics.

Rather than just concentrating on the percentage of girls taking the subject, which is well known to hover just below 30%, the study analysed the progression of girls from different types of school.

Continue reading the Guardian article here.

Hazel’s comment:
My secondary education is a long way behind me but I was very disappointed to realise that without having taken O-level physics I could not move on to taking an A-level in the subject and had to leave my girls-only grammar school to do two maths and chemistry at A-level and physics at O-level in the local technical college.

Now it seems that the girls-only schools are doing better than co-ed schools at getting girls into physics.


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