Interest in physics after experimental activities with a mobile application: gender differences

Currently, the physics disciplines are represented by a significantly larger number of professional males, compared to females. Although the problem of underrepresentation of female physicists has several causes, one likely reason is the lower interest that female school students have in physics activities. Several instructional solutions have been proposed to spark girls’ interest in physics, including recent ones with mobile devices. However, mobile devices could be problematic technologies for school students and teachers, particularly if guidance in their use is not provided. In the present study, we investigated the effectiveness of a novel mobile application guided with laboratory reports to increase high school students’ interest in physics. We also investigated whether the intervention with mobile laboratory activities facilitated learning about an important physics topic, namely, understanding graphs. The study was conducted in eight eligible schools, totaling data from 268 high school students (57% females). Results showed that all seven measures of self-rated interest in physics received higher scores in the posttest than in the pretest. One of the items, which assessed changes in understanding physics, showed greater effects on females than on males. Hence, the instructional mobile application under consideration helped to spark students’ interest in physics, and the effect was somewhat greater in schoolgirls, but the intervention did not change the test scores about understanding graphs, failing to demonstrate an association between increased interest in physics and changes in physics educational outcomes. The instructional implications for these findings, as well as limitations and future research directions, are discussed.