Gender roles during a high school chemistry laboratory experiment and their effect on the students’ science course selection

Abstract

The number of female students choosing the science stream in Japan is far below the average of OECD countries. In this study, a chemistry experiment was conducted with two classes of 80 students (40 boys and 40 girls) in the first year at a public high school in Japan. This study aimed to clarify the actual situation of unconscious gender-based roles during the experiment, which was conducted with a mixed-gender group, and to reveal its effect on the students’ science course selection by following their course selection at the second year. The results showed that male students tended to play a central role in the experiment and female students took on a more active role during the middle of the experiment. From the follow-up survey, students who chose a science course were more active in the first half of the experiment than those who chose a liberal arts course, and male students were more active in the experiment than female students even within the science course group. These results of longitudinal study suggest the need for more inclusive science experiments and lesson designs that go beyond the implicit and solid division of gender-roles and participation in experiments.