Asking Scientists: A Decade of Questions Analyzed by Age, Gender, and Country

ABSTRACT: Nearly 79,000 questions sent to an Internet-based Ask-A-Scientist site during the last decade were analyzed according to the surfer’s age, gender, country of origin, and the year the question was sent. The sample demonstrated a surprising dominance of female contributions among K-12 students (although this dominance did not carry over to the full sample), where offline situations are commonly characterized by males ’ greater interest in science. This female enthusiasm was observed in different countries, and had no correlation to the level of gender equity in those countries. This suggests that th