Interest, learning opportunities and teaching experience as predictors of professional vision in gender-sensitive physics education

To promote gender equity in physics education, it is essential to understand the factors that influence how even pre-service teachers perceive, interpret and make decisions when gender inequities arise in the classroom. This means that we need to pay particular attention to teachers’ professional vision of gender-sensitive physics teaching. The following study examines pre-service teachers’ interest in gender-sensitive teaching and learning, as well as their learning opportunities and teaching experiences as potential predictors of their professional vision. A questionnaire and a vignette test were used for a cross-sectional survey of 586 pre-service teachers in Switzerland. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyse the predictors. The results contribute to the current research on gender-sensitive physics education, highlighting the importance of interest as the strongest predictor, followed by teaching experience and number of learning opportunities. The results are discussed in terms of their relevance for teacher training programs in gender-sensitive science education.