Motivation for Taking AP Science Courses: Does gender matter?

The stereotype that males are better in math and science than females is one we have all heard. In my experience as a high school science teacher, that stereotype doesn???t fit due to large numbers of females enrolled in my classes. In order to gain a little more information about students that enroll in Advanced Placement (AP) science courses, especially females, this research thesis will be focusing on the student???s motivation for enrolling in the course. At one particular high school, students in AP science courses were surveyed and asked to respond on a Likert-scale, to eight different types of motivation for enrolling in the class. As a result of this study, there was no statistically significant difference in the responses between males and females for all eight types of motivation. The findings did show that females were slightly more motivated by college acceptance, and that males were slightly more motivated by previous success in similar subjects. The study did bring to light that at this high school the most motivating factor for all students was college acceptance, and the least for all students were parental pressure.Educatio