Abstract
Scholars have suggested that student non-cognitive factors, such as attitudes, have contributed to the gender gap in STEM. Gender has been under investigation for students’ attitudes towards science/physics, but student scientific attitudes (SA) have meagre exploration. This study examined the relationships between gender, SA (in terms of rationality, open-mindedness, confidence in the scientific method, curiosity, and aversion to superstition), physics scores (PS), and students who chose to study college physics. The study involved 641 K12 pre-college STEM students in India. The results revealed that girls have lower PS and SA scores than boys. The PS and SA have a strong correlation for girls compared to boys. SA accounts for 34.8% of the variation in PS for girls and 18.1% for boys, including a further higher contribution from students’ aversion to superstitions than other SA under study. We consider that the students’ socio-cultural dynamics might have influenced these results. SA also impact students’ choice to study physics after K12, though gender is not a factor. Our study supports SA as another important aspect towards achieving gender parity in STEM learning.