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R. Hubbard (Arundel Sr. HS), B. Hufnagel (Anne Arundel CC)
A content survey, the Astronomy Diagnostic Test (ADT) designed for undergraduate non-science astronomy courses, was administered as a post-course survey to five senior high classes in a Maryland high school. In 2001, the five classes chosen included all three levels of physics and an astronomy class. Each class had an even distribution of male and female students, with a total of 115 girls and 104 boys as subjects. Results of the survey include: (1) The Advanced Placement (AP) physics class scored highest and general physics lowest. (2) The AP class, most of whom will major in engineering or computer sciences, had a mean ADT score similar to post-course undergraduate non-science astronomy classes. (3) For all five classes, the girls had lower mean scores than the boys. (4) In two classes the girls’ self-reported mean confidence was 40% lower than the boys’ confidence; in the other three classes the confidence levels were the same. Additional detailed research was done on the three cosmology and ten physics questions in the ADT; girls outperformed the boys in only two of these thirteen questions.