Female students and those with a low socioeconomic status (SES) typically score lower in assessments of self-efficacy and ability in STEM. In this study, a cohort of over 200 UK students attended an intensive, active learning, physics workshop, with pre- and post-assessments to measure both physics self-efficacy and physics ability before and after the workshop. Our control took the form of material that was closely related but not covered during the workshop. Students benefited from attending the workshop, as self-efficacy and ability increased significantly in the post-test, with the material not covered showing the smallest increase as expected. A significant socioeconomic attainment gap in ability was completely alleviated for questions on material covered at both secondary and upper secondary level, but not for questions on material seen at upper secondary only. In contrast, although no overall significant initial gender gap in ability was found, despite female students having a lower mean score than male students, a gender gap was alleviated for material seen only at upper secondary level. Female and low SES students’ physics ability improved more than male and high SES students’ respectively. The workshop particularly benefited students from a mildly underperforming demographic tackling the hardest questions, or students from a significantly underperforming demographic tackling intermediate questions but not the hardest questions. The already high levels of confidence in their abilities felt by the cohort (which was boosted further by the workshop) meant that none of the demographics considered were less self-efficacious than their peers, however the self-efficacy of female students improved more than male students, but of high SES students more than low SES students. This study provides a valuable contribution towards understanding the interaction between the extent of underperforming and question difficulty, and the features from the Bootcamp can be easily transferred to other STEM subjects.

中文翻译：

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积极学习物理研讨会对中学生自我效能感和能力的影响

女学生和社会经济地位低下的学生在STEM自我效能和能力评估中通常得分较低。在这项研究中，一群200多名英国学生参加了一次密集的，主动学习的物理研讨会，并进行了前后评估，以测量研讨会前后的物理自我效能和物理能力。我们的控制采取与材料密切相关但在研讨会期间未涉及的材料的形式。学生从参加研讨会中受益，因为自我效能感和能力在测验后显着提高，未涵盖的材料显示出的增幅最小。在中学和高中阶段所涵盖的材料问题上，社会经济能力方面的重大差距已得到完全缓解，但不是仅针对高中阶段的材料问题。相比之下，尽管没有发现总体上明显的初始性别差距，但尽管女学生的平均得分低于男学生，但仅在高中阶段所见材料的性别差距有所缓解。SES女生和低生的物理能力分别比男生和SES高生的物理能力提高更多。这次研讨会特别使适度人口学表现不佳的学生解决最棘手的问题，或者使适度人口学性能不佳的学生解决中等问题，但不是最难的问题，使学生受益。同类群组已经对自己的能力产生了高度的信心（通过研讨会进一步提高了），这意味着所考虑的受众群体中没有一个比同龄人的自我效能感差，然而，女学生的自我效能比男学生有所提高，但高SES学生的自我效能比低SES学生的提高。这项研究为理解表现不佳的程度和问题难度之间的相互作用提供了宝贵的帮助，并且可以将Bootcamp中的功能轻松转移到其他STEM主题中。