Exploring gender differences in the Force Concept Inventory using a random effects meta-analysis of international studies

Abstract

The force concept inventory (FCI) is one of the research-based assessments (RBAs) established by the physics education research (PER) community to measure students' understanding of Newtonian mechanics. Former works have often recorded the notion of gendered mean FCI scores favoring male students notably in the North America (NA) based studies. Nevertheless, these performance gaps remain inconclusive and unexplored outside the NA context. This paper aims to fill this gap by meta-analyzing the mean FCI scores between gender based on the existing PER literature beyond the NA context. We analyzed the magnitude and direction on the mean FCI scores between gender on the basis of primary international studies published over the last two decades. We also explored the moderating impact of international study characteristics on the meta-analytic findings by performing a subgroup analysis to study the different study regions stratified by two subgroups (NA vs non-NA authors). Thirty-eight studies reporting the mean FCI scores by gender were included in the present meta-analysis. We employed Hedges' g statistic to estimate to what degree the mean FCI scores may be different between male and female students on each study. Under a random effects model, we meta-analyzed the findings and conducted a subgroup analysis to answer the research questions. In summary, our meta-analysis indicated a significantly positive and moderate amount of gendered mean FCI scores in favor of male students both in NA- and non-NA based regions, and the performance gaps were wider in the NA-based studies. Suggestions are discussed for promoting gender fairness in the FCI when interpreting its scores for teaching, learning, and forthcoming studies.