The Fora: A Higher Education Community

Quote from: jimbogumbo on October 05, 2024, 01:52:56 PM

Quote from: marshwiggle on October 05, 2024, 01:04:05 PM

Quote from: jimbogumbo on October 05, 2024, 12:23:14 PMOne of the findings that jumped out at me was no gender difference in attrition in Physics: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-024-01284-0

Actually, the highest gender differences were in bio and neuro, fields that attract a high number of women. So that suggests attrition may be more to do with the kind of people who choose a discipline, rather than the discipline itself. (i.e. The kind of women who choose physics are much more similar to the men who choose physics than the kind of women who choose biology are to the men who choose biology.)

That may be, but the American Physical Society has made gender attrition a focus. It also explicitly states that pedagogical research should be counted equally with content research in P&T decisions, which benefits everyone regarding attrition.

But it still seems strange that a professional society focus (by a mostly male group) would have a more pronounced effect than the presence of a much higher proportion of females in the field itself. If that is indeed the case then it really bears looking into. (And note the divergence is visible all along the graphs, not just near the end. The male and female lines in physics are together all the way through, while they start to separate for biology early on and the gap monotonically widens.)
 

The tile of this topic is incredibly ironic; "equity" is exactly what is lacking, it would seem.

Quote from: fizzycist on October 06, 2024, 09:00:17 PMI wonder whether this criterion makes certain fields more reflective of retention very early on (post Bachelor's) vs after PhD or whatever.

Our dept does pretty clearly have trouble retaining women, particularly acute at the Freshman/Sophomore transition.

It is helpful to understand undesirable attrition, and I agree that the paper has some useful information despite the limitation.

What do the women who change major from physics do in sophomore year? Do they consider themselves part of attrition? Or did they find something better to do?

What is "better"? That really depends on some often tacit values. Some people I know in the math/physics realm feel that going less quantitiative is softer and a lesser pursuit. On the other hand, qs a biologist, I think we can put those students on an even better life course if they change to my department! Those are the sort of things the faculty researchers will consider because those are our values as faculty. But what about the students' perspective? That is the one that really matters.

What do you know about your phusics majors?

Good morning!

QB. QB yesterday, with edge, edged, eagled ending the list.

Happy solving!

$3.02 near my house, but $2.84 near campus.

FWIW, something similar has happened here, but without private equity. It's just the result of a couple decades of underfunding, coupled with a couple decades of hospital closures outside urban settings (because they lose money--so the profit motive sneaks in despite the government funding).

It's gotten to the point where even in the major city I live in, many of the hospitals close their emergency rooms for weeks at a time. The whole of northern Ontario is staffed by something like 2.5 plastic surgeons instead of the recommended 10 (a parent is one of them, but won't be for much longer). Yet they just hired a second bariatric surgeon for the region--because doing so is more profitable. You'd think that wouldn't matter in a public system, and yet...

It's criminal, and I did not think I'd live to see it--and certainly not so soon. A lot of the discourse is that outsourcing to the private sector will help, but it won't (in fact, that's precisely part of the problem in some provinces).

Cannot your state intervene here?

Are neuro and bio fields where students are expected to publish before starting a PhD?

In physics, the fraction of PhD applicants with publications is getting higher every year, but still not the norm.

I wonder whether this criterion makes certain fields more reflective of retention very early on (post Bachelor's) vs after PhD or whatever.

Anyway, it was still an interesting read. Our dept does pretty clearly have trouble retaining women, particularly acute at the Freshman/Sophomore transition.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on October 06, 2024, 07:33:03 AMMore grading today, plus some referee reading, I hope.

Caught up on grading (but more tomorrow!), finished the article, translated a page.

Evening!

Just realized that I haven't gotten back to the bee or posted here since getting to genius with the two pangrams before leaving for a bird walk this morning. QB yesterday.

Had a bunch of phone calls, catching up and planning trips, so it was a day well spent.

Happy solving!